CONCLUDING REMARKS. 867 



that the connexion with Madao^ascar dates from a time since 

 the introduction of iron-smelting in a part of the great Malayo- 

 Polynesian district, and belongs to that particular group of is- 

 lands near the Eastern coast of Asia where this immense step 

 in material civilization was made. Again, the philological re- 

 searches of Buschmann, which have brought into view traces 

 of the Aztec language up into the heart of North America, 

 fifteen hundred miles and more north of the City of Mexico, 

 join with several other lines of evidence in bringing far distant 

 parts of the population of the continent into historical con- 

 nexion, and in showing, at least, that such communication 

 between its different peoples as may have spread the art of 

 pottery from a single locality is not matter of mere speculation. 

 It is in this way that it will probably be found most expedient 

 to use fragmentary arguments from the distribution of the arts 

 and sciences of savage tribes, in Ethnological districts where 

 a way has been already opened by more certain methods. 



In its bcai'ing on the History of Mankind, the tendency of 

 modern research in the region of Comparative Mythology is 

 not to be mistaken. The number of myths recorded as found 

 in diflerenti countries, where it is hardly conceivable that they 

 should have grown independently, goes on steadily increasing 

 from year to year, each one furnishing a new clue by which 

 common descent or intercourse is to be traced. Such evidence, 

 as fast as it is brought before the public, is received with the 

 most lively interest ; and not only is its value fully admitted, 

 but there may even be observed a tendency to use it with too 

 much confidence in proof of common descent, without enough 

 consideration of what we know of the way in which Mythology 

 really ti'avels from race to race. The cause of the occurrence 

 of a myth, or of a whole family of myths, may be, and no doubt 

 often is, mere intercourse, which has as little to do with com- 

 mon descent as the connexion which has jjlanted the stories 

 of the Arabian Nights among the Malays of Borneo, and the 

 legends of Buddha among the Chinese. On the other hand, 

 the argument from similar customs has received, as a whole, 

 comparatively little attention, but it is not without importance. 

 Two or three, at least, of the customs remarked upon in the 



