CHAPTER XI.
THE PROBABILITIES THAT AMERICA WAS PEOPLED FROM THE OLD WORLD, CONSIDERED GEOGRAPHICALLY AND PHYSICALLY.
Legends of Atlantis—Brasseur de Bourbourg’s Theory—The Subject Examined Scientifically—Retzius’ View—Le Plongeon’s Observations—Identity of European and American Plant Types—Revelations of the Dolphin and Challenger Expeditions—The Atlantic Floor—Challenger and Dolphin Ridges—Challenger Plateau probably once Dry Land—Identity of European and South American Fauna—Elevation and Depression of Coast Level of Greenland, United States, and South America—Gulf Stream—Equatorial Current—The Trade-Winds—Accidental Discovery of Brazil—America Probably Reached by Ancient Navigators—The Caras—Atolls of the Pacific Ocean—A Pacific Continent—Contiguity of the Continents at the North—Aleutian Islands—Kuro-Suvo—Behring’s Straits—Inviting Appearance of the American Shore—Remoteness of the Migration—Prof. Grote’s View—Prof. Asa Gray’s Observations—Conditions Favorable to a Migration—John H. Becker’s Observations.
WE have observed that traditional and linguistic evidence seems to point to a trans-Atlantic origin for some of the American peoples. In a preceding chapter (iii), we quoted the story of the Platonic Atlantis, as recorded in the Critias, and alluded to the advocacy by the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg of the hypothesis that the submerged continent of Egyptian tradition was a reality. In support of this view, the Abbé has cited the opinions of geologists and the remarkable traditions preserved by the Central Americans, the Mexicans, and the Haytians, concerning the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions which submerged beneath the ocean a continent, of which the Antilles are but its mountain summits. Attach as little importance as we may to these ancient legends, which no doubt refer to some extraordinary cataclysm, the memory of which was preserved for ages by periodic feasts and religious celebrations,[756] in which the gods were besought by princes and people for security against a similar calamity, still our minds naturally associate them with the story of the Platonic Atlantis.[757]
Until recently the mere expression of belief in the former existence of an Atlantic continent has been the signal for criticism, and has called forth the smile of pity, if not of contempt. Such, however, is no longer true, since scientific investigation, consisting chiefly in deep-sea soundings and the study of the fauna and flora of the opposite shores of the Atlantic, call for the respectful attention of all who are interested in the ancient history of this continent. Prominent among the men of science who have expressed confidence in this hypothesis is Prof. Andres Retzius of Stockholm, who was convinced from a study of comparative craniology, that the primitive dolichocephalic skulls of America, especially of the ancient Caribs of the Antilles, were nearly related to the Guanches of the Canary Islands.[758]
Dr. Le Plongeon observed that the sandals upon the feet of the statue of Chaacmol, discovered at Chichen-Itza, and of the statue of a priestess found on the island of Mugeres, “are exact representations of those found on the feet of the Guanches, the early inhabitants of the Canary Islands, whose mummies are yet occasionally met with in the caves of Teneriffe and the other isles of the group.”[759] The great number of American plant-types in the Miocene flora of Switzerland, led Prof. Unger to espouse the view that a continent formerly existed in the present Atlantic ocean.[760] Professor Heer, the celebrated botanist of Zurich, for the same reasons promulgated this hypothesis, and in his Flora Tertiaria Helvetiæ, defines the location of the continent, which he believes to have been as wide as Europe.[761] In opposition to this view, it is urged by Professors Oliver and Asa Gray, that the flora of America and Europe are united by means of a former overland communication at Behring’s Straits.[762] The conformation of the ocean-bed is the next matter of importance in examining the subject. The deep-sea soundings taken for the submarine cable between Newfoundland and Ireland, led to the impression that the Atlantic floor was comparatively a level, forming but one great trough between the continents. The United States exploring ship Dolphin, however, subsequently dispelled this illusion, by revealing the fact that a great submarine plateau or mountain chain which has been denominated the “Dolphin Rise,” divided the North Atlantic into two longitudinal troughs running north and south. This is described as a seal-shaped ridge with its tail joining a connecting ridge at the south in 15° North Lat. and 45° West Long., while its body widens as it runs towards the north, reaching its maximum width under the forty-fifth parallel, and finally tapering to a narrow isthmus at 52° North Lat. and 30° West Long., which connects the ridge with the great northern submarine table-land.[763]
This work was prosecuted further by the German frigate Gazelle, and by H. M. ships Lightning and Porcupine, with confirmatory results.[764] The most thorough and satisfactory work of this character, however, was performed during the cruise of H. M. ship Challenger, from December 30, 1872, until May 24, 1876, inclusive. Sir C. Wyville Thomson, the director of the expedition, in his excellent work, The Atlantic, has contributed much exact information relative to the contour of the sea-bed. The frontispiece to his second volume is a chart illustrative of the relative depths of different localities in the Atlantic ocean. Almost its entire length from north to south, the great chain whose loftiest summits tower above the sea in the Azores Islands, St. Paul’s Rocks, Ascension and St. Helena Islands, is indicated by a white irregular belt representing a depth of one thousand fathoms, but shading off into the blue, indicative of the depths on either hand. Professor Thomson says, “Combining our own observations with reliable data which have been previously or subsequently acquired, we find the mean depth of the Atlantic is a little over 2000 fathoms. An elevated ridge rising to an average height of about 1900 fathoms below the surface, traverses the basin of the North and South Atlantic, in a meridional direction from Cape Farewell, probably as far south, at least, as Gough Island, following roughly the outlines of the coasts of the old and new worlds. A branch of this elevation strikes off to the south-westward, about the parallel of 10° North, and connects it with the coast of South America at Cape Orange; and another branch across the eastern trough, joining the continent of Africa, probably about the parallel of 25° South.”[765]
The width of the great land ridge as well as its relation to the North Atlantic islands is indicated in the following: “One of the most remarkable differences between the Azores and Bermuda is, that while Bermuda springs up an isolated peak from a great depth, the Azores seem to be simply the highest points of a great plateau-like elevation, which extends for upwards of a thousand miles from west to east, and appears to be continuous with a belt of shallow water stretching to Iceland in the north and connected probably with the ‘Dolphin Rise’ to the southward, a plateau which in fact divides the North Atlantic longitudinally into two great valleys, an eastern and a western.”[766] A member of the Challenger staff, in a lecture delivered in London soon after the termination of the expedition, expressed the fullest confidence that the great submarine plateau is the remains of the “lost Atlantis,” citing as proof the fact that the inequalities, the mountains and valleys of its surface, could never have been produced in accordance with any laws for the deposition of sediment nor by submarine elevation, but, on the contrary, must have been carved by agencies acting above the water level.[767] The volcanic character of the Azores and Philippines, together with the prevalence of volcanic deposits found upon the entire ridge by the officers of the Challenger, lend probability to the Egyptian and American legends of a tremendous catastrophe in which a continent was submerged beneath the waves.[768]
Sir C. Wyville Thomson found that the fauna of the coast of Brazil brought up in his dredging machine, were similar to that of the western coast of South Europe.[769] This is of particular interest, since at a short distance north of the Amazon an arm of the central ridge connects the sunken plateau with the coast of South America. Mr. J. Starke Gardner, the eminent English geologist, is of the opinion that in the Eocene period a great extension of land existed to the west of Cornwall. The extraordinary mingling of American, Asiatic, Australian and African genera in all European floras of the Tertiary period leads him to the conviction that at a remote time they were all connected. Referring to the locations of the Dolphin and Challenger ridges, he asserts that a great tract of land formerly existed where the sea now is, and that Cornwall, the Scilly and Channel islands, Ireland and Brittany are the remains of its highest summits.[770] The question at once arises, “What ground have we for believing that the great Atlantic ridges ever occupied a higher altitude than at present?” The answer is found in the comparison of facts with the following theory set forth by Prof. Joseph Le Conte: “Any increase in the height and extent of the whole amount of land on the globe must be attended with a corresponding depression of the sea-bottoms, and therefore an actual subsidence of the sea-level everywhere. Hence if it be true, as is generally believed, that the continents have been, on the whole, increasing in extent and in height, in the course of geological history, then it is true also that the seas have been subsiding, and that therefore the relative changes are the sum of the two.”[771] It cannot be denied that the processes of elevation and depression are now actively going on along the eastern coast of both the Americas. The coast of Greenland is sinking along a distance of 600 miles so markedly that ancient buildings on low rock-islands are now submerged, and the Greenlander has learned by experience never to build near the water’s edge.[772] The subsidence along our Atlantic seaboard is slowly going on, being most marked on the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, while on the other hand the elevation of the eastern coast of South America has been accomplished by the hidden forces, volcanic or otherwise, on a stupendous scale. “Raised beaches” have been traced 1180 miles down the eastern shore and 2075 miles along the western, ranging from 100 to 1300 feet above the sea, and Alexander Agassiz has recently identified them at a height of 3000 feet above the present sea-level by means of corals found adhering to the rocks.[773] In view of these facts, so familiar to any student of geology, it is not difficult to conceive of the former existence of Atlantis where the Dolphin and Challenger locate the mid-Atlantic ridge, described as 1000 miles in width in the latitude of the Azores. Supposing the existence of an Atlantic continent in the Tertiary period conceded, we have no means at present of determining the approximate time of its subsidence, unless we associate it with the dim and uncertain legends of the Egyptian priests and the ancient Americans. Whether the Atlantidæ who threatened to overthrow the earliest Greek and Egyptian states, but who were swallowed up by the sea in the engulfment of their island continent, were the inhabitants of the Dolphin and Challenger ridges and the colonists of Eastern America, must for the present at least remain in doubt, though strong probabilities point to the conclusion that they were.[774]
The colonization of America by transatlantic peoples, it seems to us, did not depend upon the existence of a land bridge at a remote period, but could have been accomplished without the aid of the compass, either intentionally or accidentally, through the agency of the equatorial current and the trade-winds, two mighty forces perpetually tending toward the shores of the new world. The return current of the Gulf Stream which describes a semicircle in the east Atlantic washes in its sweep the Azores, the Madeira, the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, approaching in its southern course the shores of Portugal, Morocco, and the Sahara Desert, and finally uniting with the stronger equatorial current which rushes up the coast of Africa, crosses the Atlantic under the equator, and skirts the coast of South America until it reaches the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.[775] The north-east trade-winds blowing perpetually from the coast of Europe in a belt from eighteen to twenty degrees in width (or from 1245 to 1275 miles) reach the coasts of the American continent over an area which extends from the mouth of the Amazon to the northern boundary of Florida. Through the agency of these mild but almost unvarying forces Columbus was steadily borne on to the accomplishment of the greatest event of modern history. The companions of the Admiral were dismayed by the persistency with which they were wafted beyond the bounds of the known world, and ascribed the unceasing east wind, which they supposed offered them no hope of return to their homes, to a device of the devil. In one of the houses on the island of Guadaloupe Columbus on his second voyage saw the stern-post of a vessel, supposed to have been the fragment of some ship that had drifted across the Atlantic and been cast, together with the crew, upon unknown shores. How often and how long this same process had operated it is impossible to conjecture.[776] The accidental discovery of Brazil by Cabral furnishes an additional reason for believing that anciently vessels may have reached the new world. Pedro Alvarez de Cabral was dispatched by the Portuguese on the 9th of March 1500, with a fleet of thirteen vessels on a voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, to Calicut. After passing the Cape Verde Islands he bore away to the west, in order to avoid the calms prevailing on the Guinea coast. On the 25th of April, to his surprise he discovered what proved to be the South American continent, at a point which he named Porto Securo.[777] When we consider that the distance from the coast of Africa to Cape Frio, Brazil, is but 1530 miles, and realize that twelve centuries B. C. the Phœnicians and probably other maritime peoples of the Mediterranean visited Britain at the north and coasted Africa to the south, the probabilities are strong that, through the natural agency of the Atlantic currents and the trade-winds, some ancient mariners reached the American coast.[778]
Brasseur de Bourbourg, on the authority of Baron de Eckstein and his own researches, points to the fact that the Barbarians who are alluded to by Homer and Thucydides, are a race of ancient navigators and pirates called Cares or Carians, who occupied the islands of Greece and a part of the coast of the Peloponnesus, Arcanania and Illyria, before the Pelasgi. They ruled in Phrygia and other states of Asia Minor, antedating the Phœnicians in their sovereignty of the sea and the Indo-European peoples in their domination of the land. The same people extended their borders into Nubia and Libya and became the ancestors of the nations of the Barbary States. The Abbé, to all appearances, easily identifies them with Caracars or Caribs of the Antilles, the Caras or Cariari of Honduras, and even with the Gurani of South America. We submit the question for the investigation of the student, rather than with our endorsement.[779] Whether a great continent ever existed in the Pacific Ocean since man’s appearance on the earth, or whether the great area occupied by Oceanica and the Coral Islands of the Central Pacific was once a continent, are questions which cannot now be determined. It is certain, however, as Professor Dana has shown in his study of the atolls and barriers of the Pacific, that if not a continent, at least a great archipelago measuring 6000 miles in length by from 1000 to 2000 miles in breadth, has subsided to a depth ranging from 3000 to 6000 feet. Professor Dana states that two hundred islands have thus been lost.[780] Professor Le Conte estimates the loss of land to equal 20,000,000 square miles, and defines its boundaries by the Hawaiian and Feejee groups, north and south, and the Paumotu group and Pelews, east and west. He fixes the extreme subsidence at 1000 feet, since the average height of the high islands of the Pacific at present is not less than 9000 feet above the sea level, while some of them reach 14000 feet.[781] Professor Dana is of the opinion that this vast area has subsided since the Tertiary age. Whether such is the case or not is a matter of conjecture, but it is certain that much of it has been accomplished within the human era. That a higher civilization once prevailed throughout Polynesia we need only cite the remains found on Easter Island by Captain Cook, and refer to the Appendix of Mr. Baldwin’s work, where ruins of a high order are named as existing on Ascension, Marshall, Gilbert, Kingsmill, Ladrones, Swallow, Strong’s, Navigators and Hawaiian Islands. A quadrangular tower forty feet high and several stone-lined canals are to be seen at the harbor at Strong’s Island. On the adjoining isle of Lele, cyclopian walls forming large enclosures are overgrown by forests. “These walls are twelve feet thick, and within are vaults, artificial caverns, and secret passages.” “Not more than five hundred people now inhabit these islands; their tradition is that an ancient city formerly stood around this harbor, mostly on Lele, occupied by a powerful people whom they called ‘Anut,’ and who had large vessels, in which they made long voyages east and west, ‘many moons’ being required for these voyages.”[782] It is altogether probable that not only a higher civilization once prevailed in Polynesia, but that within the history of man, the greater extent of land, now submerged, made the passage to America comparatively easy. If we turn to the North Pacific, all doubts vanish in the presence of the most favorable conditions for a migration from our continent to the other. With Latham, we believe that if America had first been discovered from the west, and Alaska and the north-west coast been as well known as our Atlantic coast, North-eastern Asia would have naturally passed for the fatherland of North-western America.[783] It is scarcely necessary to occupy space in pointing out the facilities which the Aleutian Islands offer for a migration even in inferior boats, and at all seasons of the year. The climate, though cool, is not severe, owing to the proximity of the warm current of the Kuro-suvo, and it only requires an inspection of the map to convince the most conservative. Col. Barclay Kennon, formerly of the United States North Pacific Surveying Expedition, after referring to the conspicuousness of the volcano Petropaulski on the shores of Kamtschatka, says: “Proceeding along this coast to Cape Kronotski, which lies north of Petropaulski, the distance to Behring’s Island is about one hundred and fifty miles—course east. Fifteen miles only from it is Copper Island, and about one hundred and fifty miles south-west of it is Attou Island, the most westerly of the Aleutian group, which is an almost unbroken chain, connecting the American continent to the peninsula of Alaska.”[784] It is evident that the voyage from the Asiatic to the American coast can be made as far south as the Aleutian Islands without losing sight of land but a few hours at a time—a matter of no consequence to the intrepid navigators found everywhere among the aborigines upon the islands and coast.[785] The Kuro-suvo or Japan current sweeps along the Asiatic coast, bears away to the east, and describing a semicircle, bends its course southward to the shores of California and Mexico, until it reaches about the tenth parallel of north latitude, when it returns to the Japanese coast.
This Gulf Stream of the Pacific, which nearly every season casts wrecks of Japanese junks upon our shores, no doubt has been an active agent in giving character to our ancient population.[786] Added to these twofold facilities for communication—of currents and an almost continuous chain of islands—we have a third in the narrow channel at Behring’s Straits. These straits, according to Sir John F. Herschel, are now “only thirty miles broad where narrowest, and only twenty-five fathoms in their greatest depth.”[787] Sir Charles Lyell, in alluding to the above fact, remarks: “Behring’s Straits happen to agree singularly in width and depth with the Straits of Dover, the difference in depth not being more than three or four feet.”[788] With this statement before us while standing upon the deck of a vessel midway between Calais and Dover, with the shores of France and England in full view, we felt, as never before, how absurd is the opinion which has been advanced more than once, that no general migration was likely to take place across Behring’s Straits. As well say that no general migration was likely to take place across the Straits of Dover; yet we learn that Britain was known to be inhabited as early as the twelfth century B. C.[789] The weather at Behring’s Straits, though cold even in summer, is not nearly as cold as the winters of Japan.[790] In winter the waters of the straits are frozen over generally as late as April, furnishing a continuous connection between the continents, while in summer the communication at present between the aborigines inhabiting opposite shores is continuous.[791] Frederick von Hellwald furnishes an argument for the naturalness of a migration to the American shores the fact that, “while the Asiatic projection near Behring’s Straits is almost a sterile rocky waste, the opposite coast presents a much more inviting appearance, abounding in trees and shrubs. Moreover, the climate when we pass southward of the peninsula of Alaska, is of a genial character, the temperature continuing nearly the same as far down as Oregon.”[792] The difference in the two shores is owing to the fact that the cold current from the Arctic Ocean passes southward along the Asiatic coast, while a portion of the water of the warm current passes up the American shore.[793] It is impossible to approximate the period of the world’s history in which the migration must have taken place. No doubt it was in a remote age, before the old world peoples had developed their present or even historic peculiarities and types of civilization. If this be true, the futility of all old world comparisons, and the unceasing search for analogies which has been going on since the discovery of the continent, is at once apparent.[794]
Prof. Grote thinks the first migration may have taken place in the Tertiary period in Pliocene time, and that the subsequent advent of the ice period cutting off all communication with the old world until recent times, produced a modification in the race, and that man retired with the glacier on its return to the north, where we see his descendants in the Eskimo.[795] If Prof. Croll’s theory of climatic change resulting from the maximum eccentricity of the earth’s orbit be true, or even if the ordinary time at which the American glacial period is supposed to have occurred be taken into consideration, we hardly think the evidences of man’s pre-glacial residence on this continent are sufficient on which to base a safe hypothesis.[796] Of course Prof. Grote would assign a comparatively recent migration to the civilized nations. Whether a continuous land communication ever existed between the continents at the Aleutian Islands[797] or at Behring’s Straits cannot be determined, though the probabilities seem to favor the view that they were once united.[798]
Prof. Asa Gray has satisfactorily shown the intimate relationship between the North American and Asiatic vegetation, while many of our fauna are clearly of Asiatic origin.[799] However, it is of little moment in this discussion whether the land bridge ever existed; the conditions for migration from one continent to the other are now, and no doubt ever have been favorable, and that different peoples at different times have availed themselves of those conditions is equally certain. We have already alluded to the climatic conditions south of Alaska which would naturally allure a migrating tribe down the coast to Oregon and the Columbian region. Once there, however, a tribe of considerable numbers and enterprise would soon be stimulated to push farther, because of the demands for a more ample support than could be found on the Pacific coast in the region of the Columbia and Frazier Rivers. Still, progress to the south is practically cut off, since the dryness and sterility of the Californian coast, the ice-capped mountains intervening between the north and the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and the desert highlands which rise with bleak and forbidding aspect between the Sierra Nevada and the eastern Rocky Mountains, combine in forming a barrier sufficient to turn the course of a migration.[800] Add to this the fact that the country south of Oregon rises over 2000 feet above the head of the waters of the Columbia and Missouri rivers, and it is apparent that an outlet must be sought in another direction. Nature has provided the highway. Alluding to this fact and to the unbroken line of mounds from the north and west down the Missouri valley, Mr. Becker remarks: “On the head of (canoe) navigation we have what is known as ‘portages.’ These are depressions in the continuous range of the Rocky Mountains of such a nature that they fairly invite a travelling tribe to cross from the river system of the upper Columbia, emptying into the Pacific Ocean to that of the Missouri, on which a canoe need but be floated in order to arrive in the far distant Gulf of Mexico. Canoes can easily be carried from one river system to the other. Nothing like it exists in the whole mountain range southward, until we arrive at Nicaragua Lake in Central America.”[801] It will not require long for the matter of fact reader, who comprehends the well-nigh insurmountable difficulties which lie in the way of populating America in tropical or southern latitudes, and compares with them the facilities which the proximity of the continents and the topography of our country afford, to determine from what quarter America received the greater part of its inhabitants.