Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation. 78 



Akt. VII. — On the Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation, 

 demonst' ating their discovery and progressive settlement of the 

 Continent or America, by the Bev. Dr. Lang, 31. P. 

 [Read before the Society, September 1st, 1869.] 

 The singular phenomenon which the South Sea Islands present 

 to the eye of a philosophical observer is perhaps one of the most 

 difficult to account for that has ever exercised the ingenuity of 

 man. Erom the Sandwich Islands in the Northern to New Zea- 

 land in the Southern Hemisphere ; from the Indian Archipelago 

 to Easter Island, near the continent of America — an extent of 

 ocean comprising sixty degrees of latitude and a hundred and 

 twenty of longitude (i.e., exactly twice the extent of the ancient 

 Roman Empire in its greatest glory) — the same primitive lan- 

 guage is spoken, the same singular customs prevail, the same 

 semi-barbarous nation inhabits the multitude of the isles. 



In using this language, however, I would not be understood to 

 include the numerous islands, and groups of islands, of the 

 "Western Pacific, the inhabitants of which are all remarkably 

 different from those of the other South Sea Islands, and would 

 seem to be derived from the same primitive stock as the abor- 

 igines of Australia and the Papuans of New Guinea. These 

 islanders are all of a much darker hue than those of Polynesia 

 Proper, or the islands to the eastward, many of them being jet 

 black ; and there is this remarkable distinction between the two 

 races, that while the languages of Eastern Polynesia are all mere 

 dialects of the same primitive tongue, there is an infinity of lan- 

 guages in the islands of Western Polynesia, and all remarkably 

 different from each other ; every island of any size having one of 

 its own, and the larger islands three or four. 



Confining our attention therefore, to the lighter coloured 

 Polynesian race, and leaving out of view for the present the ques- 

 tion as to their original point of departure from the other habita- 

 tions of mankind, the first question that presents itself for our 

 consideration is by what process or processes has that very 

 remarkable race spread itself over the vast Pacific, reaching as 

 they have done the remotest inhabited islands of both hemis- 

 pheres, from the Sandwich Islands in the Northern to New 

 Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere, and stretching across the 

 broadest part of the Pacific in the equatorial regions. 



Without condescending:, therefore, to notice the theories that 

 - have been sometimes advanced on the subject — viz., that the 



