286 
intercourse with Samoa, the Fiji Islands, and the New 
Hebrides/'’ But there is a document published before those 
seas were frequented by whalers and trading vessels, which 
shows a more extensive aboriginal acquaintance with the 
islands of the Pacific. I allude to the map obtained by Forster 
and Cook, from a native of the Society Islands, which has 
been shown to contain, not only the Marquesas, and the 
islands south and west of Tahiti, but the Samoan, Fiji, and 
even more distant groups. The most remarkable fact, however, 
is that one of the Hawaiian headlands has been found to bear 
the name of “the starting-place for Tahiti” — the canoes, 
according to the natives, leaving in former times at a certain 
season of the year, and directing their course by a par- 
ticular star.” * 
Facts like these are quite sufficient to prove that oceanic 
migrations, in very early periods of the world's history, might 
easily have conveyed mankind either from the east or the west 
to America. The bare possibility of such a thing, therefore, 
to say nothing of its probability, ought to convince any careful 
and conscientious mind that there is no a priori necessity for 
supposing the aboriginal inhabitants of America to have been 
created there independently of Adam. 
If we examine this matter somewhat more minutely, it will 
be found that no fewer than five distinct routes to America 
were available for primary migrations from the Old World — 
three from the Asiatic and two from the European side. 
In the first place, there was the route from the north-east of 
Asia, across Behring's Straits; in favour of which are the two 
following arguments, viz., the nearness of the opposite shores, 
and the evident continuity of population scattered along these 
coasts, as proved both by their physical affinities and by the 
agreement of their languages. This is admitted on all hands. 
To be perfectly candid, however, it ought to be allowed that, 
from a mere ethnological point of view, this migration might 
just as reasonably have taken place from America to Asia 
as the other way. While I urge this route, therefore, 
as perfectly possible, I dare not attempt to enforce it as a 
necessity. 
Secondly , there was an oceanic route from Japan and the 
northern islands of Polynesia. This, indeed, seems to have 
been a highway marked out by Nature herself, inasmuch as at 
certain seasons of the year strong easterly currents uniformly 
run from the China seas in the direction of Polynesia and 
America. Pickering, who has been already quoted, tells us 
* Pickering’s Races of Man, p. 298. 
