The Nome nugget., 1903-01-24
OUR ANCIENT AMERICANS.

Whence came the Eskimo? This is a qre';i,n easily asked but to answer it corrcly ir quite an other matter. In fact so far human kuoN led2r. goes the question cannot he answered. We may sur u:se, bat cannot speak with absolute certainty. The Eskimo a we know him bears few, fl any, re- scubluncrs |" tine Indian of ;he plains. in tA. color of his kn In fact we hold he is d svper1cl tyre 10 tine rcd Indian, hut this may be the alt of environment aud the abscuce of standardization oi the whites un:il comparatively recent time.
 History tells H. lnat made his appearance on the western continent unnumIercd agc- ago, not unlikely hrjor, the close of the glacial period. It probable that human lie began in Asia and wcs;ern North America sooner than on either shore of the Atlantic, ."ys Andrcw:. Nolhing wholly iorh is the belief that America was even the cradle of the race, or one of several cradles, though most scent fc Nr..tt@ prefer the view that species came hither from Asia. It may be that the thu crossed, uo at Be,ins strait alone, but a,on. btlj oi equatorial islands well. We may lh uk oi sue cesslys waves of such graton-lrrhaps tho easiest way to account for certain differences among American races. It is, at any rate error 10 speak of the primordial Americans as derived from any Asiauc stock at present existing Or known to history The old Amrricns had scarcely an Asiatic feature. Their habits and customs em Radically pcculia to themselves. Those in which they agreed with the Trans Pacific populations such as fashion of wea pon+ and of Notifications, clements of folk lore, religious ideas, trad lions of food, belief in the destruction Of the world by Gre and so nearly all found tie world over, the spontaneous creations of OUT mon human intelligence.
 EthnoIogical writers mainly agree that the orig inal American peoples, various and unlike as they were, agreed in four traits, three O them phys cal mental, which mark th"m off in all likelihood primarily of stock after sl and different from any old work! men. They had low, retrratiug fore heads Their hair was black. It was also of pc cullar texture, lHnk anl cylindrical in section, Wayy. And their Languages poly4ynthetc, forming class apart from all others in the world. The people of Amerca if from Asia, must date back 10 q time when speech itself was in its infancy
 The numerous varieties of ancient Americans re- dUce to two distinct typrs-the ong-ykulled and the short-skucd, or the Toltecan and the American proper. The ToltccNA tvle was represented by the primitive inhabitants of Mexico and the mound builders of the Mississippi valley; the American proper by the Indians The ToIt,cans made far the closer approach to civilization, though the others possessed much greater susceptibility therefor tan the nCdern ludtans of the plains vould indicate.
 The ett!rnent and cit iIizatOn of the New World have den!orazed the Indians. Largely speaking they have passed away. Whether they were old race already beginning to decline, when the New World discovered fresh race, which contact w.t the whites has baked of it's development, it is diff cult say. Their career since best accords with the former up}osilion In eith,r may assunle that their national groupings and habi;ats were nearly the same in 1900 later, hen these became accurately known.
 We may be safe in assuming that the Eskimo probi lv represents the oldest branch of the ancie
 Americans. Alaska at time, ages ago, n, doubt tropical country; ample evidences that suc wa the case are found and we need not cnun. crate them Who can say that the Garden of EIcn ms y