[789] “There is as much reason to believe that America was
peopled from Asia, as that the primitive races of Europe and Africa
should derive their origin from an Eastern source.”—Macfie,
Vancouver Island and British Columbia. London, 1865.
[790] “The weather is, it is true, cold at Behring’s Straits,
even in summer, but not one-fourth as cold as at Matsumai, Japan, in
winter.”—Col. Kennon in Leland’s Fusang, p. 74.
[791] Frederick von Hellwald in Smithsonian Report,
1866, p. 345. “Open skin canoes, capable of containing twenty or more
persons with their effects, and hoisting several masts and sails,
are now frequently observed among the seacoast Tehuktchis, and the
inhabitants of northern Alaska.”—Whymper, Alaska, p. 246–7.
[792] He continues his statement that the Gulf Stream of the
Pacific is the warming agent, and adds the argument that “the present
inhabitants of the countries contiguous to Behring’s Straits on the
two sides, in manners, customs, and physical appearance are almost
identical.”—Smithsonian Report, 1866, p. 345.
[793] Gallatin, p. 156. Bancroft, in assuming the certainty
of a migration by Behring’s Straits, says “it seems absurd to argue
the question from any point,” vol. v, p. 54. Venegas, Noticia de la
California, Madrid, 1757, vol. i, p. 71, and London ed., 1759, p.
61, says the Californians at that date had clear traditions of having
come from the north. Fontaine, How the World was Peopled, (N.
Y. 1872), pp. 147–9, thinks that the march of Genghis with 1,400,000
Tartars caused the flight of his enemies in large numbers across the
Aleutian archipelago and Behring’s Straits. Warden, Recherches,
pp. 118–36, makes an argument for a migration through Behring’s Straits
from Tartary and China.
[794] Gallatin, in Amer. Ethnol. Soc. Trans., vol. i,
p. 158, says: “That America was first peopled by Asiatic tribes is
highly probable; but after the lapse of several thousand years, the
memory of that ancient migration was lost.” He inquires as to what we
knew of Gaul or Britain before the Roman invasion. Mr. W. H. Dall, in
his thoughtful Memoir on the Origin of the Innuit, says: “I see
no reason for disputing the hypothesis that America was peopled from
Asia originally, and that there were successive waves of emigration.
The northern route was clearly by way of Behring Strait; at least, it
was not to the south of that, and especially it was not by way of the
Aleutian Islands.”—In Contributions to North American Ethnology,
vol. i, p. 95. Washington, 1877. 4to.
[795] Aug. R. Grote, The Peopling of America, in
American Naturalist, April 1877.
[796] Croll, Climate and Time, New York, 1875, 12mo.
Prof. McFarland in Am. Jour. of Sci. and Arts, June 1876, p.
456. Newcomb on Croll’s Theory in same journal for April 1876,
p. 263.
[797] Whymper, Alaska, pp. 246, 247, discusses the
volcanic nature of the Aleutian Islands, mentioning the fact that
“There are records of very severe shocks of earthquake felt by the
Russian traders and nations dwelling on them.”
[798] Sir Charles Lyell, Antiquity of Man, pp. 273
et seq., has shown that Great Britain was separated from the
continent by subsidence and glacial action, thus producing the English
Channel which, we have already seen, corresponds singularly with
Behring’s Straits in width and depth, and formerly, no doubt, both
corresponded more nearly in climatic conditions. It is not unreasonable
to suppose that both passages were produced by the same agencies.
[799] Presidential Address to the Am. Association for Adv.
of Sci., 1872, and published in his Darwiniana, pp. 203 et seq.
[800] John H. Becker, The Migration of the Nahuas, Congrès
des Américanistes, Luxembourg, ses., tom. i. p. 349. Altogether the
most enlightened treatment of the subject yet published.
[801] Becker in Ibid., pp. 348–9. The same author
cites from the Trans. of Am. Geog. Soc., 1874, the following
interesting statement made by Gen. Milnor: “Nowhere else on the
continent can similar great valleys such as the Missouri and Columbia
be found, meeting advantageously at a common point on the main dividing
backbone which separates the continental waters flowing east and west
to the two oceans. The heads of these main valleys are here only from
three to four thousand feet above the sea, while the great treeless
plains—further south—are elevated more than six thousand feet.”
[802] The expedition which the German government and the
Berlin Geographical Society is about to send to the North Pacific under
the intelligent direction of my friend Dr. Van der Horck, will no doubt
contribute largely to our information concerning the ethnographical
relationship of America to Asia.
[803] Second Report on the Implements found in the Glacial
Drift of New Jersey, by C. C. Abbott in Eleventh Annual Report of
Peabody Museum, pp. 225–57. Cambridge, 1878.
[804] Mr. Becker remarks: “Why should the Aztec priesthood
and nobility, a class bred and educated in the understanding of
traditional lore and an elaborate system of picture-writing, be
considered as a set of metaphysical lunatics who did not know or did
not mean what they said.”—Migration of the Nahuas in Cong.
des Américanistes, Luxembourg, 1877, tom. i, p. 342.
[805]Vide Journal of the Cincinnati Society of
Natural History, Vol. I, No. 3, October, 1878.
[806]Vide Archæological Explorations in
Tennessee, by F. W. Putnam. Eleventh Annual Report of the
Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology, Cambridge,
Mass., 1878.
[807] Letter to the author, dated Davenport, Iowa, May 24,
1879.
[808] Bulletin of U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey
of the Territories, vol. ii., No. i., p. 6.
[809] Contributions to North American Ethnology, vol.
iv.—U. S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain
Region, J. W. Powell in charge. Washington, 1881: especially chap. ix.
[810] In addition to the work by Mr. Morgan above cited, the
student of Mound-builder and Pueblo archæology should not fail to
consult vol. vii. of the Report upon U. S. Geographical Surveys west
of the one hundredth meridian, in charge of Lieutenant Wheeler,
Washington, 1879. The volume bears the above date, but did not appear
until near the close of 1881. The editing of this valuable work was
committed to the discriminating care of Professor F. W. Putnam, who was
assisted by an able corps of specialists, among others Dr. C. C. Abbott
and Albert S. Gatschet. The Second Part is devoted to papers on the
Pueblos. The magnificent fund of materials here presented, accompanied
by full-page heliotypes of ruins and implements, vastly enlarges our
knowledge of that interesting people. Still another work, of more than
ordinary importance to ethnological and archæological students, is
Dr. Charles Rau’s Observations on Cup-shaped and other Lapidarian
Sculptures in the Old World and in America, Contributions to
Ethnology, vol. v. Washington, 1881. Last, but not least, is Professor
Otis T. Mason’s Account of recent Progress in Anthropology, in
Smithsonian Report for 1880.