And the professor paid the price demanded.
[CHAPTER XIX.]
WHENCE CAME THE ABORIGINES OF AMERICA?
Many and varied are the answers to this interrogation, like Gaul, they are divided into three parts, or classes, the impossible and absurd, the possible, and the probable.
Most of the writers on this subject seem to have evolved out of their inner consciences or imaginations a fine-spun theory, and then to have marshaled all the evidence possible in support of it.
Should there be other facts which do not support their theory, so much the worse for those facts. Wherever it is possible they are tortured and perverted into supporting what it is predetermined to prove. But if this can not be done by any sophistry or jugglery of words, then the facts in question are coolly ignored.
Now we do not expect to settle this long-mooted question, but we have honestly and carefully investigated the subject in all its bearings, and without any preconceived theory to support.
Instead of trying to begin with the American Indian and trace the line of descent back to its source, we have reversed this order, and, beginning with the source and starting point of all the nations and tribes of the earth, which is the dispersion of mankind at the Tower of Babel, we have endeavored to trace that branch or branches of the Shemites which peopled this hemisphere.
But it might be asked, is such a thing possible after the lapse of ages? The reader shall be the judge after, not before, he knows the position we take, and our reasons for it.
However, before beginning our task proper, we want to consider other theories which have been advanced and stoutly defended, to account for the inhabitants and civilization found in America.