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Aving no authentic materials for a natural history of all the Americans, the following obfervations fhall be confined to a few tribes, the best known; and to the kingdoms of Peru and Mexico, as they were at the date of the Spanish conqueft.

As there appears no paffage by land to America from the old world, no problem has more embarrassed the learned, than to give an account from whence the Americans fprung: there are as many different opinions, as there are writers. Many attempts have been made for discovering a paffage by land; but hitherto in vain. Kamskatka, it is true, is divided from America by a narrow strait, full of islands: and M. Buffon, to render the paffage still more easy than by fea, conjectures, that thereabout there may formerly have been a land-paffage, tho' now wafh'd away by violence of the ocean. There is indeed great appearance of truth in this conjecture; as all the quadrupeds of the north of Asia seem to have made their way to America; the bear, for example, the roe, the deer, the rain-deer, the beaver, the wolf, the fox, the hare, the rat, the mole. He admits, that in America there is not to be feen a lion, a tiger, a panther, or any other Afiatic quadruped of a hot climate: not, fays he, for want of a land-pas

fage;

fage; but because the cold climate of Tartary, in which fuch animals cannot fubfift, is an effectual bar against them *.

But in my apprehenfion, much more is required to give satis faction upon this fubject, than a paffage from Kamfkatka to America, whether by land or fea. An enquiry much more decifive is totally overlooked, relative to the people on the two fides of the ftreight; particularly, whether they speak the fame language. Now by late accounts from Ruffia we are informed, that there is no affinity between the Kamskatkan tongue, and that of the Americans on the oppofite fide of the ftreight. Whence we may conclude, with great certainty, that the latter are not a colony of the former.

But I go farther. There are feveral cogent arguments to evince, that the Americans are not defcended from any people in the north of Afia or in the north of Europe. Were they defcended from either, Labrador, or the adjacent countries, must have been first peopled. And as favages are remarkably fond of their natal foil, they would have continued there, till by over-population they should have been compelled to fpread wider for food. But the fact is directly contrary. When America was discovered by the Spaniards, Mexico and Peru were fully peopled; and the other parts lefs and lefs, in proportion to their distance from these central countries. Fabry reports, that one may travel one or two hundred leagues north-weft from the Miffifippi, without feeing: a human face, or any veftige of a houfe. And fome French offi

Our author, with fingular candor, admits it as a ftrong objection to his theo ry, that there are no rain-deer in Afia. But it is doing no, more but juftice to fo fair a reafoner, to obferve, that according to the lateft accounts, there are plenty of rain-deer in the country of Kamfkatka, which of all is the neareft to America..

cers

cers fay, that they travelled more than a hundred leagues from the dilicious country watered by the Ohio, through Louifiana, without meeting a fingle family of favages. Labrador is very thin of inhabitants; no people having been difcovered in it, but the Esquimaux, a very finall tribe. And as that tribe has plenty of food at home, there is no appearance, that they ever fent a colony to any other part of America.The civilization of the Mexicans and Peruvians, as well as their poputoufness, make it extremely probable that they were the firft inhabitants of America. In travelling northward, the people people are more and more ignorant and favage: the Efquimaux, the most northern of all, are the most favage. In travelling fouthward, the Patagonians, the most fouthern of all, are fo ftupid as to go naked in a bitter cold rẻgion.

I venture ftill farther; which is, to conjecture, that America has not been peopled from any part any part of the old world. The external appearance of the inhabitants, makes this conjecture approach to a certainty; as that appearance differs widely from the appearance of any other known people. Excepting the eye-lafhes, eye-brows, and hair of the head, which is invariably jet black, there is not a fingle hair on the body of any American: not the least appearance of a beard. Another diftinguishing mark is their copper-colour, uniformly the fame in all climates, hot and cold; and differing from the colour of all other nations. Ulloa remarks, that the Americans of Cape Breton, refemble the Peruvians in complexion, in manners, and in customs; the only visible difference being, that the former are of a larger stature. A third circumstance no lefs diftinguishing is, that American children are born with down upon the fkin, which difappears the eighth or ninth day, and never grows again. Children of the old world are born with fkins fmooth and polifhed, and no down appears till puberty. That the original inhabitants of America are a race distinct from

all

all others, I once thought demonftrable from some reports concerning the Esquimaux. The author of the history of New France and feveral other writers report, that the Efquimaux are bold, mifchievous, fufpicious, and untamable; that it is not even safe to converse with them but at a distance; that no European fkin is whiter; and that they are bearded up to the eyes. Suppofing these facts to be true, had I not reason to believe, that the Efquimaux must have fprung from fome nation in the north of Europe or Afia, tho' I could not pretend to say, whether the transmigration was by land or fea? From the fame facts, however, I was forc'd to conclude, that the rest of the Americans could not have had the fame origin; for if the Canadians or any other American nation were of Afiatic or European extraction, they muft, like the Esquimaux, have had a beard and white skin to this day. But one cannot be too cautious in giving faith to odd or fingular facts, reported of diftant nations. It is difcovered by later accounts more worthy of credit, that the foregoing defcription of the Esquimaux is false in every particular. Of all the northern nations, not excepting the Laplanders, the Efquimaux are of the smallest fize, few of them exceeding four feet in height. They have heads extremely gross, feet and hands very small. That they are neither cruel nor fufpicious, appears from what Ellis fays in his account of a voyage anno 1747, for difcovering a north-weft paffage, that they offered their wives to the English failors, with expreffions of fatisfaction for being able to accommodate them. But what is the most to the prefent purpofe; they are of a copper colour, like the other Americans, only a degree lighter, occafioned probably by the intense cold of their climate; and they are alfo altogether deftitute of a beard. It is common indeed among them, to bring forward the hair of the head upon the face, for preferving it from flies, which rage in that country during fummer; an apVOL. II.

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pearance

pearance that probably has been mistaken by travellers for a beard.

It has been lately discovered, that the language of the Efquimaux is the fame with that of the Greenlanders. A Danish missionary, who by fome years refidence in Greenland had acquired the language of that country, made a voyage with Commodore Pallifer to Newfoundland ann. 1764. Meeting a company of about two hundred Efquimaux, he was agreeably furprised to hear the Greenland tongue. They received him kindly, and drew from him a promise to return the next year. And we are informed by Crantz, in his history of Greenland, that the fame Danish missionary vi fited them the very next year, in company with the Rev. Mr Drachart. They agreed, that the difference between the Efquimaux language and that of Greenland was not greater than between the dialects of North and South Greenland, which differ not fo much as the High and Low Dutch. Both nations call themselves Innuit or Karalit, sand call the Europeans Kablunet. Their ftature, features, manners, dress, tents, darts, and boats, are entirely the fame. As the language of Greenland resembles not the language of Finland, Lapland, Norway, Tartary, nor that of the Samoides, it is evident, that neither the Efquimaux nor Greenlanders are a colony from any of the countries mentioned. Geographers begin now to conjecture, that Greenland is a part of the continent of North America, without intervention of any fea *. One thing is certain, that the Greenlanders resemble the North-Americans in every particular: they are of a copper colour, and have no beard; they are of a small fize, like the Efquimaux, and have the fame

✦ The Danes had a fettlement in Greenland long before Columbus faw the West Indies. Would it not appear paradoxical to say, that America was discovered by the Danes long before the time of Columbus, and long before they knew that they had made the discovery?

language.