ween the peoples of the two sides of the Pacific may be the result of
an ancient distribution around the northern regions of the globe."

The very remarkable survival of certain plants and fungi, dating from the
Tertiary period, in two such widely sundered countries as Asia Minor and
North America, certainly finds a curious and striking parallel in the
analogy of the cosmical ideas and social organization of Babylonia and
Assyria with those of Mexico.

What is more: A cosmical scheme, attributable to a prolonged observation
of natural celestial phenomena, such as could best have been carried on in
circumpolar regions, has been shown to be as widespread as the
Scandinavian flora which "is present in every latitude and is the only one
that is so."

Many of my readers will doubtless be inclined to explain the identity of
cosmical and religious conceptions, social organization, and architectural
plans shown to have existed in the past between the inhabitants of both
hemispheres, as the result of independent evolution, dating from the
period when primitive man, emerging from savagery, was driven southward
from circumpolar regions, carrying with him a set of indelible impressions
which, under the influence of constant pole-star worship, sooner or later
developed and brought forth identical or analogous results.

Those who hold this view may perhaps go so far as to consider the
possibility that, before drifting asunder, the human race had already
discovered, for instance, the art of fire-making and of working in stone,
had adopted the sign of the cross as a year-register, and evolved an
archaic form of social organization. To many this view may furnish a
satisfactory explanation of the universal spread of identical ideas and
the differentiation of their subsequently independent evolution.

On the other hand, another class of readers may prefer to think that,
while both hemispheres may have originally been populated by branches of
the same race, at an extremely low stage of intellectual development,
civilization and a plan of social organization may have developed and been
formulated sooner in one locality than in another, owing to more favorable
conditions and thence have been spread to both continents by a race, more
intelligent and enterprising than others, who became the intermediaries of
ancient civilization.

The great problem of the origin of American peoples lies far beyond the
scope of the present work and its fin