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The firft is Father Gregorio Garcia, a Spanifh 

 Dominican, who having been a long time employ- 

 ed in the millions of Peru and Mexico, publilhed 

 at Valencia in the year 1607, a treatife in Spanifh, 

 on the Origin of the Indians of the New World* 

 where he both collects and examines a great number 

 of different opinions on this fubjecl:. He propofes 

 every opinion, as if it were fome thefis or queftion 

 in philofophy : names its authors and advocates, 

 fets down the arguments, and laftly, aniwers the 

 objections, but gives no decifion. To thefe he has 

 added the traditions of the Peruvians, Mexicans, and 

 iflanders of Haiti, or Hifpaniola, all which he was 

 informed of, when on the fpot. In the fequel, he 

 gives his own opinion, which is, that feyeral different 

 nations have contributed to the peopling of America • 

 and here I think he might have ftopt. This opi- 

 nion is fomewhat more than probable, and it ap- 

 pears to me, that he ought to have been contented 

 with fupporting it, as he does, with fome arguments- 

 drawn from that variety of characters, cuftoms, 

 languages and religions, obfervable in the different 

 countries of the new world. But he admits fuch a 

 number of thefe, which the authors of other opi- 

 nions had before made ufc of, that inftead of 

 ftrengthening, he really weakens his own. In the, 

 year 1 729, Don Andre Gonzales de Garcia reprint- 

 ed the work of this Father at Madrid, with confi- 

 derable augmentations ; but though he has made 

 many learned additions to it, he has contributed 

 nothing to the farther fatisfadion of his readers. 



The feeond is Father Jofeph de Acofta, a Spanifh 

 Jefuit, who had likewife fpent a great part of his 

 life-time in America, and has left behind him two 

 very valuable works ; one in the Caftjiian language, 

 intituled, The natural and moral Btftory of the In- 

 dies 



