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croffes, baptifm, circumcifion, confefllon, fads, and 

 other religious ceremonies, fome veftiges of which 

 have been pretended to have been found in Yucatan 

 and elfewhere, we lhall foon fee what regard he pays 

 to them in the arrangement of his own fyftem, of 

 which here follows the plan. 



In the firft place, he fuppofes that America be- 

 gan to be peopled by the North and regarding 

 the barrier of the Ifthmus of Panama, which Gro- 

 tius imagines was not open before the time of the 

 Spaniards, as a fuppofition void of all foundation, 

 he maintains, that the primitive colonies fpread 

 themfelves far beyond it, lince through the whole 

 extent of that continent, and both in the northern 

 and fouthern parts of it, we meet with undoubted 

 marks of a mixture of the northern nations with 

 thofe who have come from other places. He be- 

 lieves that the firft founders of thofe colonies were 

 the Scythians ; that the Phenicians and Carthagini- 

 ans afterwards got footing in America by way of 

 the Atlantick Ocean, and the Chinefe by way of 

 the Pacifick and that other nations might, from 

 time to time, have landed there by one or other of 

 thefe ways, or might poffibly have been thrown on 

 the coaft by tempefts ; and laftly, that fome Jews 

 and Chriftians might have been carried there by 

 fome fuch like event, but at a time when all the 

 New World was already peopled. 



He, in my opinion, very well obferves, that thofe 

 giants, who may have been feen in fome parts of 

 America, prove nothing *, that though in the firft 

 ages, they might poffibly have been more frequent- 

 ly met with, yet it cannot be faid, they ever com- 

 pofed the body of a nation ; that as their pofterity 

 dA not all inherit their gigantic ftature, fo men of 



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