for
the whole continent, has a rather distant resemblance to that of the
Asiatic Mongols. Nor is there any difficulty in finding the immigrants
a means of transit from northern Asia. Even if it be held that the
land-bridge by way of what are now the Aleutian Islands was closed
at too early a date for man to profit by it, there is always the passage
over the ice by way of Behring Straits; which, if it bore the mammoth,
as is proved by its remains in Alaska, could certainly bear man.

Once man was across, what was the manner of his distribution? On this
point geography can at present tell us little. M. Demolins, it is true,
describes three routes, one along the Rockies, the next down the
central zone of prairies, and the third and most easterly by way of
the great lakes. But this is pure hypothesis. No facts are adduced.
Indeed, evidence bearing on distribution is very hard to obtain in
this area, since the physical type is so uniform throughout. The best
available criterion is the somewhat poor one of the distribution of
the very various languages. Some curious lines of migration are
indicated by the occurrence of the same type of language in widely
separated regions, the most striking example being the appearance of
one linguistic stock, the so-called Athapascan, away up in the
north-west by the Alaska boundary; at one or two points in
south-western Oregon and north-western California, where an absolute
medley of languages prevails; and again in the southern highlands along
the line of Colorado and Utah to the other side of the Mexican frontier.
Does it follow from this distribution that the Apaches, at the southern
end of the range, have come down from Alaska, by way of the Rockies
and the Pacific slope, to their present habitat? It might be so in
this particular case; but there are also those who think that the signs
in general point to a northward dispersal of tribes, who before had
been driven south by a period of glaciation. Thus the first thing to
be settled is the antiquity of the American type of man.

A glance at South America must suffice. Geographically it consists
of three regions. Westwards we have the Pacific line of bracing
highlands, running down from Mexico as far as Chile, the home of two
or more cultures of a rather high order. Then to the east there is
the steaming equatorial forest, first covering a fan of rivers, then
rising up into healthier hill-country, the whole in its wild state
hampering t