P k E F A C E. vii 
rfca ; thefe conjectures are fhort, and it is like- 
ly occurr’d to him cafually, perhaps they are 
hot all well grounded* or at molt apply’d to> 
any but the Eskimaux , however, the lame len- 
timents on this fubjeft have been fupported by 
the learned Grotius in his trcatife de Origine Geu- 
timnAmericanarm^wd in his reply to J.deLaet. 
This queftion has long been agitated with 
great warmth, and every folution of it hitherto* 
has found oppofors, becanle thofe who have en- 
gaged in the controverfy have forgot, or wil-* 
fully miftook* that the point in dilpute cannot 
realonably be, whether it was actually peopled 
from one or more particular places ? but whe- 
ther it might probably be peopled confident 
with the Mofakk hiftory ; other wife it would 
be hard to fay, how all this enquiry has been 
lb much confined to America, when the paflage 
of the inhabitants to many other parts of the 
globe is attended with equal difficulties. / e /7*' 
'P. Charlevoix who has with great exactnefi ' 
abftrabted the opinions and arguments of the 
writers on this fubjecl, has obferved, that be- 
fides the eafy paflage by lea from the coaft of 
Guinea to that of Brazil: If it has not yet 
been demonftrated that the new world is con- 
tiguous to the old on the South, North-Eaft and 
North-Weft, at leaft the contrary lias not been 
Ihewn, fo that the principal difficulties to be 
encountered, arile not from the want of a Paf- 
age, but from colour, manner, and language, 
which feem irreconcileablc to any we are ac- 
quainted 
