THE CANADIAN SPORTSMAN AND NATURALIST 



nishing well authenticated facta of discovi 

 in flic Pacific, a multitude <>l ;i similar char- 

 acter 1 »< -i n tr within reach of the common reader : 



" In the middle of tbe Pacific ocean, 3,000 miles distant 

 from the nearest continent, lies Easter Island, abounding 

 with remains of a remote antiquity, which have intere ted 

 anil perplexed a party of savants who recently visited them. 



This island is 40 miles in circumference, of volcanic origin, 

 barren, no trees, destitute of resources, and inhabited by a 

 hw savages who lead the most miserable life imaginable. 



But upon this narrowstrip of land so barren and unproduc- 

 tive, the explorer beholds a forest of gigantic statues, o( the 

 origin and beginning of which the race dwelling around 

 know absolutely nothing. The smallest of these statues 

 measured 30 fset, and a few attain the incredible dimen- 

 sions of 50 feet. Some repose upon Cyclopean platforms; 

 the greater portion of them wear crowns about six feet in 

 heigh), which have evidently been placed upon these statues 

 after their erection. The foreheads of the statues are re- 

 treating, and the mouths prominent, which indications may 

 possibly reveal the race who constructed them. As regards 

 the workmanship displayed upon them, it is rude and 

 clumsy, although not destitute of character and expression. 

 The questions concerning them presented for solution are: 

 What do they represent? Whose handiwork are they? 

 and how came they there? How possibly could this barren 

 island have nourished a race of men capable of raising such 

 monuments? Where is the race? What country do they 

 still inhabit?" 



It is well known to the antiquarian that 

 Asia was originally populated by a black race, 

 as is Africa in our day. These aborigines re- 

 ceded before the great Aryan wave which 

 lulled down from the Northeast, driving 

 before it the weaker, as do the same race with 

 the Indians of America at the present time. 

 They overran the great plains of Central Asia 

 and made permanent homes in the valleys of 

 I he Tigris and Euphrates; thence spread 

 eastward, intermingling with the already 

 mixed population inhabiting Iran and Hindos- 

 tan, while an advanced wave, pressed by those 

 in the rear, crossed the Isthmus of Suez, and 

 established themselves along the Nile. These 

 parent waves spread westward and overran 

 Europe, with colonies to Northern Africa, 

 everywhere destroying the males and inter- 

 mixing, forming varieties of races. In process 

 of ages the same dominant race crossed the 

 Atlantic, to repeat the barbarities of a remote 

 age on the natives of this country, and to 

 efface the link which connects all these with a 

 submerged race over which rolls in majestic 

 and solemn grandeur the deep and surging 

 waves of the mighty Pacific. 



It is well-known to geologists that animals 

 whose habitat was in or near the tropical 

 regions, and distant from which they could nof 

 survive, have been found embedded in ice in 

 the Artie regions north of Asia.* They were 



since their hyperborean imprisonment 



their flesh wae consumed by carni i 



m;il- now inhabiting trio 



warmer sun melted their en. 



tact of itself demonstrates thai the |xj 



were once approximating the equatorial; 



these animals could never have wander 



tar from the place- <,r their naii\ i:; I 



proves that the change from a high to a low 



temperature was sudden, not leaving 'in 



Iwccn for animal decay to commence alter 



the destruction of lite, and the formation ■ 



by which they wen- preserved. 



Beds of ino-i excellent mineral coal are 

 found in Greenland, from where i - . i- quarried 



and loaded directly on ship board of exploring 

 steamers visiting those high latitudes. It i- 

 loiind out-cropping from cliffs at the very mar- 

 gin of the sea. Whether there is more than 

 one stratum of such coal the writer is not in- 

 formed, 



Twenty-eight different beds ol cal, super- 

 posed one above another, with varying thick- 

 ness of intervening rock and slate, have been 

 opened and worked in Great Britain. The 

 lowest of these is more than 5,000 feet below 



the present surface of the Ma. This tells 11-. 

 with unerring certainty, that [here has been 

 twenty-eight epochs, cad, of indefinite dura- 

 tion, when those islands were alternately above 



and below the sea level; periods when the 

 earth was covered with dense verdure; when 

 the surging ocean rolled over it, and covered 

 that verdure with sand and gravel, the material 

 of which overlying rock was formed ; when it 

 again emerged; was again adapted to the 

 growth of vegitation, and again, after the lapse 

 of countless ages, went down, and so has con- 

 tinued until the present* order of things was in- 

 troduced. 



What is true of the British islands in this 

 regard, is probably true of every other island 

 and continent on the globe. And this oscilla- 

 ting condition of tin' earth's crust will ever go 

 on with seas and continents while the same 

 laws which have governed matter as in the 

 past shall continue. To-day a continent, cov- 

 ered with animal and vegitable life ; to-morrow 

 the ocean rolls its, turbid waves over the melan- 

 choly wreck, leaving no trace ^<\' the toil. 



*So fresh is the ivory throughout northern Russia, that, 

 according to Tilesius thousands of fossil tusks have been 

 collected and used in turning ; yet others are still procured 



and sold in great plenty. He decla-es his belief that the 

 bones still left in northern Russia muse greatly exceed in 

 number all the elephants now living OH the globe 

 Chart** Lyell, in his Prittci/Us , p. 81, 



