contribution, let them produce evidence showing the improbability that the
identical forms of cult, religion, social organization, calendar cycles
and numerical schemes should have been independently evolved two or more
times by distinct races. On the other hand, let those who hold the view
that American civilization was purely autochthonous, advance grounds for
the supposition that it developed a school of philosophical speculation
and that America produced its Empedocles and its Plato. Let them also
formulate the psychical law which caused the American race to formulate
the four elements, recognized as such by the philosophers of India and
Greece, and not the five of Chinese philosophy; and to evolve numerical
schemes applied to social organization, identical with those current in
India, Western Asia and the Mediterranean countries, but different from
that employed in China and Japan. It will also be incumbent upon them not
only to disprove American traditions, which record the introduction of a
higher civilization and plans of social organization by strangers, but
also to demonstrate that, although in ancient times, Phoenician traders
carried on an active traffic with Britain, daring the perils of the Bay of
Biscay, they could not possibly have ventured across the southern
Atlantic, even in the most favorable seasons. It has remained a source of
sincere regret to me that circumstances prevented my attending the
Orientalist Congress which met at Rome, in October, 1899, under the
presidency of the illustrious Count Angelo de Gubernatis, to whom credit
is due for having first suggested and planned that a section of the
Congress should devote itself to the discussion of prehistoric contact or
connection between the Old and New Worlds.

With an apology for my non-attendance and consequent failure to aid in
organizing the section and carrying out a plan which met with my
enthusiastic approval, I venture to submit the present investigation to
the President and officers of the Orientalist Congress with the earnest
hope that it may contain material and suggestions for fruitful discussions
during the next Congress held, and that these may be carried on in a
section devoted to the consideration of facts relating to prehistoric
America and its relation to the Old World.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.

In the preceding pages the view is advanced that the ancient cross-symbol
or swastika was first used by man, presumably in circumpola