13 



rivers, and partial ^inundations have pre- 

 sented powerful obstacles to the migration 

 of nations, The extensive countries of the 

 north of Asia are as thinly peopled, as the 

 savannahs of New Mexico and Paraguay ; 

 nor is it necessary to suppose, that the coun- 

 tries first peopled are those, which offer the 

 greatest mass of inhabitants. The problem 

 of the first population of America is no 

 more the province of iTistory, than the 

 questions on the origin of plants and ani- 

 mals, and on the distribution of organic 

 germs, are that of natural science. History, 

 in carrying us back to the earliest epochas, 

 instructs us that almost every part of the 

 Globe is occupied by men who think them- 

 selves aborigines, because they are ignorant 

 of their origin. Among a multitude of 

 nations, who have succeeded, or have been 

 incorporated with each other, it is impos- 

 sible to discover with precision the first 

 basis of population, that primitive stratum 

 beyond which the region of cosmogonical 

 tradition begins. 



