were the mountains belonging to that tract of land which we suppose to have been swallowed up by earthquakes; which is made more probable by the multitude of volcanoes which we know of in the peninsula of Kamtfchatka. It is imagined, however, that the finking of that land, and the feparation of the two continents, has been occafioned by thofe great and extraordinary earthquakes mentioned in the hiftories of the Americans, which formed an era almost as memorable as that of the deluge. The hiftories of the Toltecas fix fuch earthquakes in the year I Tecpatl; but as we know not to what century that belonged, we can form no conjecture of the time that great calamity happened. If a great earthquake should overwhelm the isthmus of Suez, and there should be at the fame time as great a scarcity of historians as there were in the first ages after the deluge, it would be doubted, in 300 or 400 years after, whether Afia had ever been united by that part to Africa; and many would firmly deny it. Whether that great event, the feparation of the continents, took place before or after the population of America, is as impoffible as it is of little moment for us to know; but we are indebted to the above-mentioned navigators for fettling the long difpute about the point from which it was effected. Their obfervations prove, that in one place the diftance between continent and continent is only 39 miles, not (as the author of the Recherches Philofophiques fur les Americains would have it) 8co leagues. This narrow ftrait has alfo in the middle two islands, which would greatly facilitate the migration of the Afiatics into the New World, fuppofing that it took place in canoes after the convulfion which rent the two continents afuuder. Befides, it may be added, that thefe ftraits are, even in the fummer, often filled with ice; in winter, often frozen. In either cafe mankind might find an eafy paffage; in the laft, the way was extremely ready for quadrupeds to cross and stock the continent of America. But where, from the vaft expanfe of the north-eaftern world, to fix on the first tribes who contributed to people the New Continent, now inhabited almost from end to end, is a matter that baffles human reafon. The learned may make bold and ingenious conjectures, but plain good fenfe cannot always accede to them. As mankind increafed in numbers, they naturally protruded one another forward. Wars might be another caufe of migrations. There appears no reason why the Afiatic north might not be an officinia virorum, as well as the European. The overteeming country, to the caft of the Riphoan mountains, muft find it neceffary to difcharge its inhabitants: the first great wave of people was forced forward by the next to it, more rumid and more powerful than itself: fucceffive and new impulfes con tinually tinually arriving, fhort reft was given to that which spread over a more eaftern tract; disturbed again and again, it covered fresh regions; at length, reaching the fartheft limits of the Old World, found a new one, with ample space to occupy unmolefted for ages; till Columbus curfed them by a discovery, which brought again new fins and new deaths to both worlds. "The inhabitants of the New World (Mr. Pennant obferves), do not confift of the offspring of a fingle nation; different people, at feveral periods, arrived there; and it is impoffible to fay, that any one is now to be found on the original spot of its colonization. It is impoffible, with the lights which we have fo recently received, to admit that America could receive its inhabitants (at leaft the bulk of them) from any other place than eaftern Afia. A few proofs may be added, taken from customs or dreffes common to the inhabitants of both worlds: fome have been long extinct in the Old, others. remain in both in full force. "The cuftom of fcalping was a barbarifm in ufe with the Scythians, who carried about them at all times this favage mark of triumph: they cut a circle round the neck, and ftripped off the skin, as they would that of an ox. A little image found among the Calmucs, of a Tartarian deity, mounted on a horfe, and fitting on a human skin, with fcalps pendent from the breaft, fully illuftrates the cuftom of the Scythian progenitors, as defcribed by the Greek hiftorian. This ufage, as the Europeans know by horrid experience, is continued to this day in America. The ferocity of the Scythians to their prifoners extended to the remotest part of Afia. The Kamtfchatkans, even at the time of their discovery by the Ruffians, put their prifoners to death by the most lingering and excruciating inventions; a practice in full force to this very day among aboriginal Americans. A race of the Scythians were filed Anthropophagi, from their feeding on human flesh. The people of Nootka Sound ftill make a repaft on their fellow creatures: but what is more wonderful, the favage allies of the British army have been known to throw the mangled limbs of the French prifoners into the horrible cauldron, and devour them with the fame relifh as thofe of a quadruped. the "The Scythians were faid, for a certain time, annually to transform themselves into wolves, and again to refume the human fhape. The new discovered Americans about Nootka Sound, at this time difguife themfelves in dreffes made of the fkins of wolves and other wild beafts, and wear even the heads fitted to their own. These habits they use in the chace, to circumvent the animals of the field. But would not igno rance rance or fuperftition afcribe to a fupernatural metamorpofis these tempotary expedients to deceive the brute creation? "In their marches, the Kamtfchatkans never went abreast, but followed one another in the fame tract. The fame cuftom is exactly obferved by the Americans. "The Tungufi, the most numerous nation refident in Siberia, prick their faces with fmall punctures, with a needle, in various shapes; then rub into them charcoal, fo that the marks become indelible. This cuftom is still obferved in feveral parts of America. The Indians on the back of Hudfon's Bay, to this day, perform the operation exactly in the fame manner, and puncture the skin into various figures; as the natives of New Zealand do at prefent, and as the ancient Britons did with the herb glaftum, or woad; and the Virginians, on the first discovery of that country by the English. "The Tungufi ufe canoes made of birch-bark, distended over ribs of wood, and nicely fewed together. The Canadian, and many other American nations, ufe no other fort of boats. The paddles of the Tungufi are broad at each end; thofe of the people near Cook's river, and of Oonalafcha, are of the fame form. "In burying of the dead, many of the American nations place the corpfe at full length, after preparing it according to their customs; others place it in a fitting pofture, and lay by it the most valuable cloathing, wampum, and other matters. The Tartars did the fame: and both people agree in covering the whole with earth, fo as to form a tumulus, barrow, or carnedd. "Some of the American nations hang their dead in trees. Certain of the Tungufi obferve a fimilar cuftom. "We can draw fome analogy from drefs: conveniency in that article muft have been confulted on both continents, and originally the materials must have been the fame, the skins of birds and beafts. It is fingular, that the conic bonnet of the Chinese should be found among the people of Nootka. I cannot give into the notion, that the Chinese contributed to the population of the New World; but we can readily admit, that a fhipwreck might furnish thofe Americans with a pattern for that part of the drefs. "In refpect to the features and form of the human body, almost every tribe found along the western coaft has fome fimilitude to the Tartar nations, and ftill retain the little eyes, fmall nofes, high cheeks, and broad faces. They vary in fize, from the lufty Calmucs to the little Nogaians. The internal Americans, fuch as the Five Indian nations, who are tall of body, robust in make, and of oblong faces, are derived from from a variety among the Tartars them felves. The fine race of Tfchut ski seem to be the stock from which thofe Americans are derived. The Tfchutfki, again, from that fine race of Tartars the Kabardinfki, or inhabitants of Kabarda. "But about Prince William's Sound begins a race chiefly diftinguished by their drefs, their canoes, and their inftruments of the chace, from the tribes to the fouth of them. Here commences the Efquimaux people, or the race known by that name in the high latitudes of the eastern fide of the continent. They may be divided into two varieties. At this place they are of the largest fize. As they advance northward they decrease in height, till they dwindle into the dwarfish tribes which occupy fome of the coafts of the Icy Sea, and the maritime parts of Hudfon's Bay, of Greenland, and Terra de Labrador. The famous Japanese map places fome islands feemingly within the Straits of Behring, on which is bestowed the title of Ya Zue, or the Kingdom of the Dwarfs. Does not this in some manner authenticate the chart, and give us reason to suppofe that America was not unknown to the Japanese; and that they had (as is mentioned by Kampfer and Charlevoix) made voyages of dif covery, and according to the laft, actually wintered on the continent? That they might have met with the Efquimaux is very probable; whom, in comparison of themselves, they might juftly diftinguish by the name of dwarfs. The reafon of their low ftature is very obvious: thefe dwell in a most severe climate, amidst penury of food; the former in one much more favourable, abundant in provifions; circumftances that tend to prevent the degeneracy of the human frame. At the ifland of Oonalafcha, a dialect of the Efquimaux is in ufe, which was continued along the whole coaft from thence northward." The continent which stocked America with the human race poured in the brute creation through the fame paffage. Very few quadrupeds continued in the peninfula of Kamtfchatka; Mr. Pennant enumerates only 25 which are inhabitants of land: all the reft perfifted in their mi gration, and fixed their refidence in the New World. Seventeen of the Kamtfchatkan quadrupeds are found in America: others are common only to Siberia or Tartary, having, for unknown causes, entirely evacu ated Kamtfchatka, and divided themfelves between America and the parts of Afia above cited. Multitudes again have deferted the Old World even to an individual, and fixed their feats at diftances most remote from the spot from which they took their departure; from mount Ararat, the refting place of the ark, in a central part of the Old World, and excellently adapted for the difperfion of the animal creation to all its parts. We need not be ftartled (fays Mr. Pennant) at the vaft journeys journeys many of the quadrupeds took to arrive at their present feats. Might not numbers of species have found a convenient abode in the vast Alps of Afia, inftead of wandering to the Cordilleras of Chili? or might not others have been contented with the boundless plains of Tartary, inftead of travelling thousands of miles to the extensive flats of Pampas ?To endeavour to elucidate common difficulties is certainly a trouble worthy of the philofopher and of the divine; not to attempt it would be a criminal indolence, a neglect to "Vindicate the ways of God to man.” But there are multitudes of points beyond the human ability to explain, and yet are truths undeniable: the facts are indifputable, notwithstanding the caufes are concealed. In fuch cafes, faith must be called in to our relief. It would certainly be the height of folly to deny to that Being who broke open the great fountains of the deep to effect the delage-and afterwards, to compel the difperfion of mankind to people the globe, directed the confufion of languages-powers inferior in their nature to these. After these wondrous proofs of Omnipotency, it will be abfurd to deny the poffibility of infufing inftinct into the brute cretion. Deus eft anima brutorum; "God himself is the foul of brutes:" His pleasure must have determined their will, and directed feveral fpecies, and even the whole genera, by impulfe irrefiftible, to move by flow progreffion to their deftined regions. But for that, the Lama and the Pacos might ftill have inhabited the heights of Armenia and some more neighbouring Alps, instead of labouring to gain the diftant Peruvian Andes; the whole genus of armadillos, flow of foot, would never have quitted the torrid zone of the Old World for that of the New; and the whole tribe of monkeys would have gamboled together in the forefts of India, instead of dividing their refidence between the fhades of Indostan and the deep forefts of the Brafils. Lions and tigers might have infested the hot parts of the New World, as the first do the defarts of Africa, and the last the provinces of Afia; or the pantherine animals of South America might have remained additional fcourges with the favage beafts of those ancient continents. The Old World would have been overstocked with animals; the New remained an unanimated wafte! or both have contained an equal portion of every beast of the earth. Let it not be objected, that animals bred in a fouthern climate, after the defcent of their parents from the ark, would be unable to bear the froft and fnow of the rigorous north, before they reached South America, the place of their final deftination. It must be confidered, that the migration muft have been the work of ages; that in the course of their progress each No. III. generation X |