260 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



Hence they returned to Iceland or to Norway with little 

 uncertainty. 



Disregarding for a moment the probabilities already men- 

 tioned of the subsidence of a great extent of land in the Pacific 

 Ocean, it is evident that from the East of Asia and the Poly- 

 nesian Islands, the principal immigrations of mankind have 

 taken place. Of these the Pitcairn and Easter Islands, near- 

 est to the coast of South America, are remarkable for the co- 

 lossal idols of stone, which have been observed in both, though 

 the first was for a time believed never to have been inhabited 

 before the arrival of the mutineers of the Bounty, and the 

 other is now in the possession of a race who do not claim 

 the fabrication of them. It may be observed, in confirmation 

 of the removal of Polynesians by war, by design, or by stress 

 of weather, to the eastward, that to the 20th degree of south 

 latitude, and to more than 200 leagues at sea, a south-west 

 and south cold wind blows, with a current coming from the 

 pole, and, setting towards the south-west coast, drives float- 

 ing bodies on the shores of Chili. Easter Island, the farthest 

 eastward of all the Polynesian groups containing inhabitants, 

 is as remote from them as from the longitude where these 

 winds and currents prevail ; hence the casual arrival of Poly- 

 nesian wanderers could scarcely fail to reach the coast of Chili ; 

 and subsequently they were, it is obvious, driven eastward, to 

 commix with the Brazilian tribes, and southward, to form the 

 race of Araucas ; others, perhaps from the Sandwich Islands, 

 rre the progenitors of the tribes on the Sacramento river, on the 

 lorth-west coast, where the women still wear the Maro, and 

 the men have short undulating hair, with beard and whiskers 

 very soft and silky. 



That another immigration was continuous for ages from the 

 east of Asia, is sufficiently indicated by the pressure of nations, 

 so far as it is known in America, being always from the north- 

 west coasts, eastward and southward, to the beginning of the thir- 

 teenth century. It appears to have taken place mostly by the 



