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the three great canons he has laid down in order to guide us when arguing 
from analogy. It has been well said that a coincidence to a historian is a 
will-o’-the-wisp, and that it very often leads him into a quagmire. The 
remark applies with still greater force to reasoning from analogy in philolo- 
gical studies. Nothing is more tempting, and nothing is more delusive to 
the philologist than a coincidence, and the three great canons laid down 
by the learned author of the paper are peculiarly valuable to us, as 
tending to put us on our guard against being led away by the great similarity 
of the agglutinate principle of the Aryan and the Turanian languages and those 
of North America, or being deterred, on the other hand, from forming a 
specific conclusion by the slight similarity which exists between the Semitic 
languages and the languages of South America ; and arguing from analogy 
that they afford us sufficient proof that there must have been some in- 
tercourse between the Old and the New World, or rather that the inference 
is not only possible, but highly probable, that the population of what we call 
the New World sprang from some kind of emigration, which took place, 
whether by accident or design, from the Old World. (Cheers.) 
Captain Fish bourne. — If I may be allowed to make a remark upon 
what may be termed the geographical view of the question, I would observe 
that the origin of currents is generally attributed to the winds ; and Mr. 
Titcomb has not laid any great stress upon the winds, which I think are a 
mfich more reasonable and effectual way of accounting for the intercourse 
taking place between the two continents than any other. It must be re- 
membered that canoes and rafts are very common even in these days on the 
coast of Chili. Great quantities of goods are carried upon rafts, and when 
they are blown off from the land, what can be more likely than that they 
should be carried away with the prevailing winds ? The trade-winds blow 
exactly in the direction of the two courses which Mr. Titcomb has referred 
to. The north-east trade-wind would carry them from Polynesia, by the 
Pacific, over to America ; and the south-east trade might carry them round 
the Cape and across the South Atlantic. With respect to the improbability 
of small vessels making such voyages, which has sometimes been alleged, it 
must be remembered that the old voyagers made some of their voyages in 
very small vessels. We have in these days got such large ships that we can 
hardly imagine that such voyages as those we are talking of could have been 
made by small vessels ; but in the days of Anson we had vessels of from 
only 30 to 70 tons making long sea voyages ; whereas now that we have ships 
of from 3,000 to 4,000 tons, we really begin to imagine that it is impossible 
to make a long voyage in a small vessel, and so that when we hear of people 
coming over from America in a small boat in which there were only two men 
and a boy, it is considered a most extraordinary thing, and all the world 
rushes to see the vessel. There really is nothing extraordinary in it ; for 
voyages equally remarkable used to be made quite commonly in those days. 
I recollect, some years ago, Wilson Croker justifying his promotion of a son 
to a command at an early age, by saying that nobody had heard of such a 
feat of seamanship as he had achieved, for he had actually navigated a vessel 
