122 ELLIOT SMITH, Distribtition of Mummification. 



spread custom, apparently originating in Egypt and 

 spread far and wide, right out into the Pacific and America, 

 of the association of a boat with the funerary ritual, to 

 ferry the mummy to the west. 



Certain distinctive aspects of phallism in America 

 might also be mentioned as evidence of the influence of 

 Old World practices. 



In the appendix (part i) to his " Conquest of Mexico," 

 Prescott (59) summarises fully and fairly the large and 

 highly suggestive mass of evidence available at the time 

 when he wrote in favour of the view that the pre-Colum- 

 bian civilization of Mexico and Peru had been inspired 

 from Asia. In view of the apparent conclusiveness of 

 his statement of the evidence it becomes a matter of some 

 interest and importance to enquire into the reasons which, 

 in the face of the apparently overwhelming testimony of 

 the facts he has summarised, restrained him from adopting 

 the obvious conclusion to which his whole argument 

 points. 



Referring to the numerous islands of the Pacific as 

 one means of access of population to America, Prescott 

 quotes Cook's voyages to illustrate how easily the Poly- 

 nesians travelled from island to island hundreds of miles 

 apart, and adds, " it would be strange if these wandering 

 barks should not sometimes have been intercepted by the 

 great continent, which stretches across the globe, in un- 

 broken continuity, almost from pole to pole. 



" Whence did the refinement of these more polished 

 races [of America] come? Was it only a higher develop- 

 ment of the same Indian character, which we see, in the 

 more northern latitudes, defying every attempt at per- 

 manent civilization ? Was it engrafted on a race of 

 higher order in the scale originally, but self-instructed, 

 working its way upward by its own powers ? W'as it, in 



