The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-02-05
~rx., THEORY.

From a contemporary we ieotH 'h@e Count Maurice de Peregny, the French archaeolarist. has discovered in Guate- ,,at. the ruins of a great city of the Nf.v.s Tn the restoration of this last rranistoric metropolis may lie the con .,,ding iinkssfn the chain of evidence that this continent peopied Asia. The researches of the past fifty years have tends& steadily to connrm the theory. oxaes generaliy ss.khted, that the earli- fest civilization of which there is any trace existed in or emanated from North and South America. The com mon racial characteristics of the Amer ican Indian and the Japanese and Chi nese and other Asiatics has practically established the theory that they are of the same stock. Which continent was fret inhabited and furnished emigrants 1 to people the other is the question in | dispute.
 | This looks like reversing the order ] of events, for most investigators un- I dertake to show that this continent | was peopied from the old world. l About sixty years ago John Mcintosh | published his Book of the Indians
 which. though somewhat crude in style is very interesting. He takes the position that the Indians of North
 America descended from Japhet,
 through his second son. Magos, who
 was the ancestor of the Scythians Likewise he argues that the original T d. ed from shem and came to this conti-
 nent by way of China and Korea. oi
 some other part of Asia. The North | American branch. or descendants of la phet, came across by way of Boring
 strait. while the offspring of shep
 crossed from Asia to America by way
 of tho numerous islands that lie be I tween. Even the wonderful island oi
 continent of Atlantis. so entertain ingly described by Iguatius Donnelly
 may have existed and helped then
 along.
 All these may be fanciful theories but 1t is interesting to note the mum
 ber of words and phrases copied fS
 Mcintosh as common to the origina
 inhabitants of the old and new worlds
 and which are used by him in suppor
 of his contention that the two Ameri
 can continents were peopled by wander
 CTS from Europe and Asia many cen tdries ago.
 Now comes this French savant u
 reverse the whole business and prov
 that Asia, at least. was settled by emf
 grants from America. If that is tru
 ourr should be called the Old Worl
 instead of the New. Whether satis
 factory evidence will ever be produces
 is a different matter. but two thing
 seem beyond controversy. It is practi
 calIy a settled fact that there existe
 in Central America q civilization in
 flnitely more ancient than any that ex , isted farther North, and infinitely nor advanced. whether it was Mayan o something still more ancient cannot b 2 certainly said. but in various parts O
 Central America there are to be foun ruins and almost complete remains works of art and architecture as ia above anything known by modern In l d1anS as can well DC inidBiupu' AHSS , remains prove that there was once a advanced civilization there. but hoN long ago or why it disappeared ar questions yet unanswered.
 Another established fact is that ther once lived and hourished over Iarg areas of North America race of peo pie of whom modern Indians kne' nothing. but which left its impress i many ways. They may have bee
 swept from existence by some grea
 cataclysm. or the influx of new arriv als by way of Bering's Strait may hay | gradually driven the old civilizatio southward to finally perish. or to be come mingled with the peoples wh were still in possession of the extrem southwestern portion of North Amer lea, as we'll as the central division c i the two continents. While all thi , may yet be mere speculation it is nev , 1 ertheless interesting.