The Dawn of Canadian History | Page 9

the languages of America with those of any other part of the world. This is a very notable circumstance. The languages of Europe and Asia are, as it were, dovetailed together, and run far and wide into Africa. From Asia eastward, through the Malay tongues, a connection may be traced even with the speech of the Maori of New Zealand, and with that of the remotest islanders of the Pacific. But similar attempts to connect American languages with the outside world break down. There are found in North America, from the Arctic to Mexico, some fifty-five groups of languages still existing or recently extinct. Throughout these we may trace the same affinities and relationships that run through the languages of Europe and Asia. We can also easily connect the speech of the natives of North America with that of natives of Central and of South America. Even if we had not the similarities of physical appearance, of tribal customs, and of general manners to argue from, we should be able to say with certainty that the various families of American Indians all belonged to one race. The Eskimos of Northern Canada are not Indians, and are perhaps an exception; it is possible that a connection may be traced between them and the prehistoric cave-men of Northern Europe. But the Indians belong to one great race, and show no connection in language or customs with the outside world. They belong to the American continent, it has been said, as strictly as its opossums and its armadillos, its maize and its golden rod, or any other of its aboriginal animals and plants.
But, here again, we must not conclude too much from the fact that the languages of America have no relation to those of Europe and Asia. This does not show that men originated separately on this continent. For even in Europe and Asia, where no one supposes that different races sprung from wholly separate beginnings, we find languages isolated in the same way. The speech of the Basques in the Pyrenees has nothing in common with the European families of languages.
We may, however, regard the natives of America as an aboriginal race, if any portion of mankind can be viewed as such. So far as we know, they are not an offshoot, or a migration, from any people of what is called the Old World, although they are, like the people of the other continents, the descendants of a primitive human stock.
We may turn to geology to find how long mankind has lived on this continent. In a number of places in North and South America are found traces of human beings and their work so old that in comparison the beginning of the world's written history becomes a thing of yesterday. Perhaps there were men in Canada long before the shores of its lakes had assumed their present form; long before nature had begun to hollow out the great gorge of the Niagara river or to lay down the outline of the present Lake Ontario. Let us look at some of the notable evidence in respect to the age of man in America. In Nicaragua, in Central America, the imprints of human feet have been found, deeply buried over twenty feet below the present surface of the soil, under repeated deposits of volcanic rock. These impressions must have been made in soft muddy soil which was then covered by some geological convulsion occurring long ages ago. Even more striking discoveries have been made along the Pacific coast of South America. Near the mouth of the Esmeraldas river in Ecuador, over a stretch of some sixty miles, the surface soil of the coast covers a bed of marine clay. This clay is about eight feet thick. Underneath it is a stratum of sand and loam such as might once have itself been surface soil. In this lower bed there are found rude implements of stone, ornaments made of gold, and bits of broken pottery. Again, if we turn to the northern part of the continent we find remains of the same kind, chipped implements of stone and broken fragments of quartz buried in the drift of the Mississippi and Missouri valleys. These have sometimes been found lying beside or under the bones of elephants and animals unknown in North America since the period of the Great Ice. Not many years ago, some men engaged in digging a well on a hillside that was once part of the beach of Lake Ontario, came across the remains of a primitive hearth buried under the accumulated soil. From its situation we can only conclude that the men who set together the stones of the hearth, and lighted on it their fires, did so when the vast wall of the northern glacier was only beginning