PREFACE. 
vii 
vied; thefe conjectures are fhort, and it is like- 
ly occurr’d to him cafually, perhaps they are 
not all well grounded, or at moft apply’d to 
any but the Eskimanx , however, the fame fen- 
timents on this fubject have been fupported by 
the learned Grotius in his treatife de Origine Gen- 
tium Americanarm , and in his reply to J. de Laet. 
This queftion has long been agitated with 
great warmth, and every folution of it hitherto, 
has found oppofers, becaufe tliofe who have en- 
gaged in the controverfy have forgot, or wil- 
fully miftook, that the point in difpute cannot 
reasonably be, whether it was actually peopled 
from one or more particular places ? but whe- 
ther it might probably be peopled confiftent 
with the Mofaick hiftory ; other wife it would 
be hard to fay, how all this enquiry has been 
fo much confined to America , when the paffage 
of the inhabitants to many other parts of the 
globe is attended with equal difficulties. 
P. Charlevoix who has with great exactnefs 
abftracted the opinions and arguments of the 
writers on this fubject, has obferved, that be- 
fides the eafy paffage by fea 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 has not been 
fhewn, fo that the principal difficulties to be 
encountered, arife not from the want of a Paf- 
age, but from colour, manner, and language, 
which feem irreconcileable to any we are ac- 
quainted 
