534 COMPULSORY MIGRATIONS IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 



have exchanged their vocations; as, on the continent, man clings to the 

 soil, here he is closely connected with the sea and the winds moving 

 it — that is, he becomes a toy of the winds and waves. If by this time 

 we have gained a comprehensive idea of the migratory capacity of the 

 inhabitants of Ocean ica, the natural result will be a perception of 

 the inanity of the hypothesis which, to explain the dispersion of the 

 peoples over the oceans, the Pacific aud the Indian, makes a continent 

 vanish, 1 instead of starting from the natural factors as they exist at 

 the present day. Finally, the opinion that the people of Oceanica 

 came from New Zealand is destroyed by merely looking at our chart. 



Of course, no deductions of a positive character can be drawn con- 

 cerning the individual acts of the migrations of the Oceanicans. The 

 chart is still too incomplete, and besides, the voyages often change to 

 the contrary direction. Only where numerous instances of vessels 

 being carried in a certain course could be recorded are special infer- 

 ences admissible. According to Kubary, the fact that the inhabitants 

 of the Carolines were not infrequently carried to the Philippines, and 

 that, in going there, they always reached the island of Samal or the 

 southernmost portion of Luzon, is a proof that the northern equatorial 

 stream breaks just at this point. On the other hand, inhabitants of 

 the Philippines have never, so far as known, been carried to Pelew, 2 

 an evidence that the northeastern stream makes a circuit around these 

 islands. The force of the current here must be very great, as it seems 

 to conquer the first impulse of driving ships out of their course, which 

 is most frequently the impact of the wind; for we have seen in the 

 majority of voyages that they always occurred in consequence of 

 storms. During long voyages, as in the case of those to America, the 

 impelling principle, on the contrary, is to be attributed to the currents 

 of the sea, for tempests are not sufficiently permanent. Even where 

 the point in question concerns driftwood and other articles, the motive 

 force is the current and not the wind, for the exposed surface is too 

 small to permit the wind to wrest it from the dominion of the current; 

 true, the wind acts indirectly through the stream all the more 

 powerfully. 



The aspect of our second group of castaways is a thoroughly char- 

 acteristic one. The one-sided direction of the voyages leads us, with 

 the previous deductions, to perceive distinctly a transfer of Polynesian 

 blood to the Hebrides, etc. ; but Viti must have been touched at each 

 time on the way from Samoa to Tonga, and hence follows the constant 

 intercourse between these last island groups. 



Between our first northern district and the two southern ones is to 

 be noticed a free space; there is scarcely a single instance of an acci- 

 dental migration to record here; and the cause is not solely the scarcity 



1 Wallace afterwards explained the dispersion of animals in these regions without 

 beiny; obliged to assume a submerged portion of the globe. 

 2 F. Ratzel: Volkerkunde II, page 341. 



