seamen, making long voyages to the north for whale and Newfoundland
cod fishing. They have produced excellent navigators; and possibly
preceded Columbus in discovering America. Sebastian, the lieutenant of
Magellan, was one of the Basque race. Magellan did not live to complete
his famous voyage, therefore Sebastian was the first actual
circumnavigator of our globe.

Francois Michel, in his work Le Pays Basque, says that the Basque
sailors knew the coasts of Newfoundland a century before the time of
Columbus; and that it was from one of these ocean mariners that he first
learned the existence of a continent beyond the Atlantic. Other
arguments are derived from comparing the peculiarities of the Basque
tongue with those of the American dialects. Whitney, an American
scholar, concludes that "No other dialect of the Old World so much
resembles the American languages in structure as the Basque."

4. _Jewish Discovery of America._--There is one claim for the discovery
of America, which, though quite improbable, if not impossible, has been
upheld and sanctioned by many scholarly works in several languages. It
is argued that the red Indians represent the ten "Lost Tribes" of the
Hebrew people who had been deported to Assyria and Media (_v._ Extinct
Civilizations of the East, p. 109). The theory was first started by some
Spanish priest-missionaries, and has since been defended by many learned
divines both in England and America, one leading argument being certain
similarities in the languages. Catlin (_v._ Smithsonian Report, 1885)
enumerates many analogies which he found among the Western Indians. The
most authoritative statement is that of Lord Kingsborough in the
well-known Mexican Antiquities (1830-'48), chiefly in Vol. VII. Some
writers actually quote a statement made in the Mormon Bible! Leading New
England divines, like Mayhew and Cotton Mather, espoused the cause with
similar faith, as well as Roger Williams and William Penn.

5. _The Italian Discovery of America._--Not through Columbus the
Genoese, or Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine, although they were
certainly Italians, but by two Venetians, Nicolo and Antonio Zeno. In A.
D. 1380 or 1390 these brothers Zeni were shipwrecked in the North
Atlantic, and, when staying in Frislanda, made the acquaintance of a
sailor who, after twenty-six years' absence, had returned, giving them
the following report:

"Being driven west in a gale, he found an island with civilized
in