72 G. Elliot Smith on 



But the great cultaral movement, which did not begin more 

 than twenty-five centuries ago, passed mainly along the route 

 marked B and C in my map. 



It is quite unknown whether any contact with the Old 

 World was established across the Atlantic before the time of 

 Lief Eiricksson, the son of Eric the Red, who landed in America 

 in the year 1000 B.C. (after following the route roughly indicated 

 by the arrows H in my map). 



It is not improbable that, once sea-going ships began to trade 

 along the Atlantic seaboard of Africa, .vessels out of control might 

 occasionally have been carried by the Trade Winds (along the 

 route marked K in my map) towards the Caribbean Sea. But we 

 have no record of such exploits, beyond certain vague American 

 legends of long-bearded white men coming across the sea from 

 the East ; and these may possibly refer to the Scandinavians. 



The description given by the Carthaginian commander 

 Himilco of a place in the Atlantic where " no wind wafted the 

 bark, so motionless stood the indolent wave," and where "seaweed 

 abounds so as to retard the course of the vessel," suggests 

 that the Sargasso Sea may not have been unknown to the 

 Carthaginians. 



Whether the circuit of the world was completed in ancient 

 times by Caribbean sailors, swept from the shores of America, 

 being carried by the Gulf Stream {L) to Europe, is also uncertain. 

 There are vague hints of such events in the writings of Pomponius 

 Mela and others^ 



In these remarks I have been trying, not so much to give 

 the details of the voyages or the evidence in corroboration of their 

 reality, as to suggest how vast a part early maritime intercourse 

 has played in the development and the diffusion abroad of the 

 civilization to which the world at large is now heir. 



^ See on tins question, Thomas Wilson, " Primitive Art," Smithsonian 

 Report for 1896, pp. 482—484. 



