56 INTRODUCTION. 



broughl about by i h<* ocean currents ami the prevailing winds. 

 Within a few yean a Japanese vessel was fallen in with l»y a whaler 

 in the North Bfcific; another has been wrecked on the Sandwich 



Islands; and. Mill mure in point, a third bu actually drifted l'» the 

 American coast near the mouth of the Columbia river. Finally, 

 between Asia ami North-west America, there 1- almost a continuous 



chain ui' islands, inhabited by the same population, so that it is 

 impossible t<i Bay where America begins, or where \ 



Hi considi is table-lands as the natural birth-placi - of civilization. 

 He compares, with this view, the table-lands of M< xico an. I Pi ru 

 with the American forests, ami their corresponding civilization. 

 America contains two of these natural centres; the table-land of 

 Thibet is a third ; all in possession of the Mongolian race. It we 

 look for a fourth, we shall find it only in Abyssinia. 



Assuming that man has been placed on the earth subject to the 

 same laws as the rot of creation, — and, finding that tie 

 animals have in no case been modified by eh.. il cir- 



cumstances in the various regions allotted to each, hut have been 

 originally fitted for their natural localities, — he argues that man. horn 

 without natural clothing, does not belong to the cold or variable 

 climates; he must have originated "in a region of perpetual sum- 

 mer, where the unprotected skin bears without suffering the slight 

 fluctuations of temperature;" in other words, he is "essentially a 

 production of the Tropics." He thinks there is " no middle ground, 

 between the admission of eleven distinct species in the human family, 

 and the reduction to one." If the latter opinion be adopted, it implies 

 a central origin, and that origin is probably the African Continent. 



Speaking of the introduction of plants into America, he thinks 

 that its agriculture may not be of spontaneous growth ; and many of 

 the objects of cultivation have been introduced especially from Japan 

 and the Polynesian islands; many of the American species have not 

 been met with elsewhere, and are doubtless indigenous. 



The foreign animals and plants of the Pacific Islands were invari- 

 ably derived from the West. Three of our domestic animals, the 

 pig, the dog, and the domestic fowl, were known throughout tropical 

 Polynesia before the visits of Europeans. They have also their 

 indigenous animals and plants. He believes that the Indian caves 

 of Budha were constructed by the White race. 



There has been a singular diversity of opinion in regard to the 

 physical characteristics of the ancient Egyptians ; the point of prin- 

 cipal interest is whether they were Caucasians or Negroes. 



