108 Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation. 



surrounded by several hundreds of small pyramids, which form 

 streets, in exact lines from north to south, and from east to west. 

 Of these two great Teocallis, one is 180 feet, the other 145 feet, 

 in perpendicular height. The basis of the first is 676 feet in 

 length ; whence it results that it is higher than the Mycerinus, or 

 third of the three great pyramids of Grhiza, in Egypt, and the 

 length of its base nearly equal to that of Cephrenes." 



Taking it for granted, therefore, that the south-eastern coast 

 of Asia, and the great islands of Sumatra and Java, the prolific 

 cradle of the Malayan race, were occupied- and settled within five 

 hundred years of* the Deluge, while the pyramidal and colossal 

 style of architecture was still the fashion of the age in the earlier 

 postdiluvian world, there" is reason to believe that the forefathers 

 of the Polynesian race, who in after ages spread themselves over 

 the Indian-Archipelago, over the multitude of the isles of the 

 vast Pacific, and over both continents of America, were separated 

 from the rest of mankind by one of those accidents to which 

 Polynesian navigation has ever been subject, at that early period 

 in the history of mankind ; that is within five hundred years from 

 the era of the Deluge. Some beautifully carved Malayan galley, 

 caught suddenly perhaps in some violent gale during the north- 

 westerly monsoon of the Indian Archipelago, would in all like- 

 lihood be carried into unknown seas, and cast upon some unknown 

 isle, where the voyagers, despairing of ever regaining their native 

 island, would take root, and reproduce the whole framework of 

 society in their new found land, agreeably to the peculiar type of 

 civilisation then prevalent in the world. And this process would 

 ever and anon be repeated, from age to age, till every island in 

 the broad Pacific had been discovered and settled, and the storm- 

 driven mariners from Easter Island had at length reached the 

 coast of America. The peculiar type of the civilisation of the 

 primitive ages of mankind would thus be stereotyped indelibly 

 on the Polynesian mind, and the full impression be reproduced, 

 wherever a suitable field should present itself for the purpose, 

 whether in the isles of the Pacific or in the continent of America. 



Now as the Polynesians of the period at which we have sup- 

 posed they were hopelessly cut oif from the rest of the family of 

 mankind, viz., about five hundred years after the Deluge, were in 

 a much higher state of civilisation than the present inhabitants 

 of the isles — and as the westerly winds that prevail within the 

 equatorial regions of the Pacific would be the impelling power to 

 draw them to the eastward — I see no reason why the entire 

 transit of the Pacific may not have been accomplished within 

 four or five hundred years from that period, and the continent of 

 America discovered and occupied at some period from twelve to 

 fifteen hundred years before the coming of Christ. This, as I 

 shall show in the latter part of my lecture, will fully account for 



