ORIGIN OF THE



the Phcenicians, the Carthaginians, and the Greeks,
made settlements, in ancient times, on the American conf



tinent. ThE
Norwegians,
to have sent
ing to refute



% Scythians, I
the Welsh,>
hither differE
the authors



the
and
*nt
of t



Chinese,
the Spani
colonies:
hese wild



rest satisfied with aNew obserwv
ble and rational system that h
It must certainly appear some
mind, that antiquaries must go 1
thage, as well as Wales, Spain,
in these countries the ancestors



ca, instead of crossin



g



the stra



mtions o



as Deen as yet Sn
what strange to
to Greece, Tyre,
and Sweden, to
of the red men o0
its of Beering w



the Swedes, the
ards, are also said
without attempt-
schemes, we shall



n the mo



;t proba-
ggested.
a sober
tnd Care
discover
f Ameri-
here the



two continents are separated by a channel only twenty-
'five miles wide.
  Some indeed have supposed that America was at this
point originally united to the old continent, and disjoin-
ed from it by the shock of an earthquake, or the irrup-
tion of a deluge. This opinion, it is true, is a mere con-
jecture, but still it is far from being improbable. There
are others again whose imaginations are somewhat more
sublime and romantic, so that nothing less than a voyage
of three or four thousand miles across the Atlantic wvii
satisfy them. These fondly imagine that some vessel,
being forced from its course by the violence of a wester-
ly wind, migfht be driven by accident towards the Ameri-
can coast, and have given a beginning to population in
that desolate continent. We have only to say on this
head, that we have neither history nor tradition to au-
thorise a, belief that such an event ever happened. Not-
withstanding the erudition which has been displayed by
the traveller and antiquary in endeavouring to trace in



the western world monumentsof antiquity, v
have great weight in proving that America
by some nation of the ancient continent whi
considerable progress in civilization, still,
can be advanced on this point, we can on
some nations had attained a higher degree



rhich should
was peopled
ch had made
from all that
ly infer that
of improve3-



306



I1Z



A