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of 200 tons round Cape Horn. Why, if you carry yourself back a hundred 
years earlier, you will find that Cook, Frobisher, and other naval commanders 
made the voyage in much smaller ships. I merely mention this in order that 
no currency should be given to the idea that it was impossible for the thing 
to have occurred in the way suggested by Mr. Titcomb. 
Mr. Shaw. — It is with some diffidence that I venture to make one or two 
remarks on the views of the rev. gentleman who has read so very able a 
paper ; but I must confess, in the first place, I am somewhat surprised at the 
very slight regard which Mr. Titcomb seems to have paid to that means of 
communication which I have always thought the most likely to have been the 
medium of conveying the population of the Old World to the New — I mean 
the communication by way of Behring’s Straits ; and although I feel, with 
the gentleman who has just spoken, that the winds and currents have pro- 
bably had a great deal to do with any accidental transmission of people from 
the Old to the New World, still I think that, having regard to the fact that 
Behring’s Straits are only about 45 English miles across, that they are centred 
by two large islands, and that very often in a severe winter the waters are 
frozen over, thus forming a complete and unbroken means of transit on foot, 
it may undoubtedly be taken as one of the most probable means of the 
transmission of the human race from one world, or rather from one part of 
the world, to another. Again, I think, although I would not enforce it as a 
necessity, that a little stronger tone might have been used with regard to the 
accidental transmission of mankind from Asia to America by means of the 
equatorial currents or the wind currents, whatever they may be. With regard 
to the use of small boats, such as the one alluded to by the gentleman who 
spoke last, namely, the boat which came over recently from America to this 
country with only two men and a boy, although that may show clearly enough 
that very long voyages may be made in very small boats, it must be remem- 
bered that in order to support the proposition that America was peopled by 
individuals who were drifted there by currents, you must show that they 
must have set out for the very purpose of peopling a new country, since it is 
quite evident that any individual who was thus drawn into the current or 
trade wind must have had his wife with him, which is rather against the 
supposition of America having been accidentally peopled in this way. I 
don’t think that that is quite consistent with an accidental transit by means 
of rafts or small boats. Of course if there was a determination to go forth 
upon some voyage of discovery for the purpose of peopling a new land, the 
men who went would be prepared with that necessary means of increasing or 
keeping up the population. What has been said by the learned author of the 
paper with respect to the traditions of Mexico appear to me to be most 
remarkable, and to afford as strong a reason as any why one should believe 
that the notions of the Old World have been carried to the New. The very 
great similarity between some of the traditions of the Mexicans and those of 
the J ews, the pyramidal column, and the notions of the deluge, which have 
certainly been current in Mexico for ages, go a long way to make one think 
that at one time or other there must have been distinct and positive, and 
