We have classed the Tasmanian tribes (of Van Diemen's Land) with them, but the basis for classification is as yet extremely uncertain.

The great difficulty in determining the races of Oceanica is, that the tendency of a nomadic people to continually form new words and new languages, as they found new colonies, is here intensified by the separation which the sea naturally causes. There is something, too, in the disposition of the black races which has doubtless increased this tendency to disintegration. Crawford, who may have exaggerated in this particular, states that there are forty languages on the little island of Timor, and many hundreds in Borneo.

Nearly all writers allow that climate and circumstances have produced the most marked effects here on persons of the same race. Among the Tahitians. and Maorians, for instance, the lowest castes are found nearly as black as negroes, and with crisp, woolly hair, while the higher (the chiefs and others), less exposed to the sun and the influences of the weather, resemble Europeans both in features and complexion; though both, there is every reason to believe, belong to the Polynesian race. Similar differences are observed on New Zealand among the blacks.

The Semangs, the blacks of Mallacca, are brown where not exposed to the sun, and in language and character have so strong a resemblance to the Malays, as to be considered by many, a tribe of that race.

The points of resemblance between the Polynesians and the Central American Indians are so striking, as to induce many writers to assign the same origin to both peoples.

The Asiatic origin of the Malay-Polynesian races

seems to us clearly indicated, so that all these resemblances cannot be considered in this connection.

(Brace: The Raçes of the Old World.)

INFLUENCE OF OCEAN CURRENTS.

I have quoted thus freely from the works of Mr. Brace, with the object, not only of proving the origin of the island races, but with the view of tracing the source (only in a general way, however) of a portion of the inhabitants of North and South America, as well as the islands of Oceanica. In another portion of this work, the ocean currents of the Pacific have been alluded to as the great highways over which the Asiatics voyaged, to people the New World. Mr. Brooks, in his work on Japanese Wrecks, accompanied by a map of the Northern Pacific, showing the location of wrecks discovered within a few hundred years, clearly shows the influence of the northern current. They are traceable from a short distance from Japan to Kamptchatka, the Aleutian Isles, Alaska, British America, Oregon, California, Mexico, the Equator, and westerly into the islands of the South Sea; always being found in the line of the Japanese Black Stream. It is doubtful if any of these wrecks were found following the other course—that is, south from Japan, and easterly through the islands of the Pacific, against winds and currents, to the American shores.

In the equatorial regions of the Pacific, the prevailing winds and the currents, always flow from east to west, or (in a plainer way) from the shores of the two Americas towards Asia; the northern and southern currents meeting at the equator off the Mexican coast, and flowing together to the Indian Ocean, to part

again, and sweep around the North and South Pacific, as already described.

Between the Phillippines, the Japanese Islands, and the eastern coast of Asia, another current flows to the south, and into the Indian Ocean; a portion sometimes reaching the Peruvian current south of Australia, and running with it in its southern course.

This inner Asiatic current, if it may be so called, explains the total absence of Chinese wrecks in our northern regions, and at the same time accounts for the Chinese wrecks found in the Indian Ocean, and even at the Straits of Magellan, on the west coast of South America.

If we readily accept the views of many writers, the peopling of the Americas by the Asiatics was but natural and easy of accomplishment. If we examine history, facts and dates, we do not find the advanced, sustained by them.

easy views

ASIATIC INFLUENCES IN PEOPLING AMERICA.

Grotius says: The Peruvians were a Chinese colony, and the Spaniards found, at the entry of the Pacific Ocean, on coming through the Straits of Magellan, the wrecks of Chinese vessels.

There are proofs, clear and certain, that Mango Capac, founder of the Peruvian race, was the son of Kublai Khan, the commander of this expedition, and that the ancestors of Montezuma, who were from Assam, arrived about the same time. Every custom described by their Spanish conquerors proves their Asiatic origin.

Again: The Hindoo, Chinese and Japanese annals all correspond in recording the fact that, about the year

1280, Genghis Khan, a great Mongol chief, whose name was a terror in Europe, at the same time invaded China with hordes of barbarians from Tartary, whom his descendants hold in subjection at the present time. Having accomplished this object, he fitted out an expedition consisting of 240,000 men in 400 ships, under command of Kublai Khan, one of his sons, for the purpose of conquering Japan. While this expedition was on the passage between the two countries, a violent storm arose, which destroyed a great part of the fleet, and drove many of the vessels on the coast of America.

(Cronise: Wealth of California.)

Some of these statements are hardly clear. The races from which the Montezumas sprung, were natives of Atzlan, a country forming at that time a small portion of northern South America, and extending into South Central America. In about 1180 A. D., a portion of this race emigrated to the valley of Mexico, forming the foundations from which the Aztecs sprung. If this statement be true, Kublai Kahn did not arrive in America until many years after. If the dates are correct, neither he or the people who are said to have reached America from Assam, about the same time, can be claimed as the founders of the Aztec

race.

Probably if a thousand years or so were taken from the above dates, and time given for the great oceanic laws governing the currents of the Pacific, as well as the gradually extending ventures of a natural maritime people, like the Chinese and Japanese, we might account for a partial peopling, at least, of the Americas by the Asiatics.

Nor is it well, in this connection, to isolate ideas.

and facts, and view the peopling of the Americas from the Pacific standpoint alone, or to ignore the influence of the great ocean currents of the Atlantic, or the early maritime ventures of countries not on our side of the world, and the bearing they have had on the ethnology of America.

ISLAND RACES.

Among the islands of the Pacific, the lines separating races are very closely defined, and through what would seem perfectly natural causes. In nearly every case the peopling of the islands can be accounted for, by supposing that their migratory habits were in accordance with the natural laws controlling the winds and currents in these regions.

Closely following the migratory movements of the human race, as an example, we may take the animal kingdom. A north and south line can be drawn through the Eastern Archipelago, where animals of the larger growth cease to exist. Borneo, Sumatra, Java and some of the other islands have the animal kingdom of India and Asia well represented in the elephant, lion, tiger, panther, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, ourangutang and monkey, with the reptilian and feathered species of the larger kind, all partaking of the species found on the main land of Asia. Of this latter country, it is believed that the islands named, at one time formed a part.

Still another parallel, running north and south and further to the east, may be drawn, where the larger of the species named above, have never been known to exist. Thus, the islands of New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, New Guinea and others in the same