EXPLANATION

OF THE

CHART OF THE PROGRESSIVE DISPERSION OF MANKIND.

This chart is, FIRST, An accurate representation of the distribution of land and water over the surface of the earth. The geography of Africa is from the last edition of Stieler's Hand Atlas, and includes the discoveries of Stanley, and other late explorers. Some parts of Polynesia are supplied from Colton's Atlas of the World. The marine contour lines are taken from the chart in Wallace's Geographical Distribution of Animals. This portion of the chart is printed in blue ink.

SECOND, It is a carefully compiled Ethnographic Chart. The basis of this is Kracher's Ethnographische Welt-Karte, in F. Müller's Report on the Ethnology of the Novara Expedition, Wien, 1875. But this has been found inaccurate in many respects, and defective in others, and many improvements have been introduced from Peschel's Races of Man, Stieler's Hand Atlas (for Africa), Von Richthofen's China, W. H. Dall's Alaska and its Resources and Tribes of the Northwest, in Powell's Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. I; George Gibb's Tribes of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon, in the same; Stephen Powers' Tribes of California, in Vol. III of the same, and H. Bancroft's Native Races of the Pacific States. This part of the chart is in

black ink, with typographical discrimination between important and comparatively unimportant ethnic groups.

THIRD, it is an elaborately studied chart of Ethnic Migrations, not based on any other attempt of the kind. It is prepared from a large number of accessible sources of information. The classes of data which have guided in laying down the lines are, 1. Knowledge of migrations, either historical or traditional; 2. Inferences of migrations, based on ethnic and linguistic affinities; 3. Inferences based on analogies in the distribution of lower animals and plants; 4. Confirmations of such inferences deduced from the geological evidences of different distributions of land and water in prehistoric times.

MEMORANDUM. The indications of this chart vary from those of the Ethnographic Table on pages 302-306, in tracing the Vagantes or Hunting Tribes of America to Polynesian Mongoloids, and in making the Brown races preadamic. It varies in some minor particulars from the Genealogical Table on pages 352 and 353. These deviations are intended to exemplify the allowable differences of opinion under the general doctrine of Preadamitism.

PREADAMITES.

THERE

CHAPTER I.

SOME TRADITIONAL BELIEFS.

HERE exists a collection of very ancient Hebrew documents, in which an account is given of the origin of the world and its inhabitants. From a very remote period these documents were understood to teach the following things:

1. That the world, with all it contains, was created by God.

2. That this creation took place about 4,000 years before our era.

3. That the work of creation extended over the period of six days.

4. That the first man, Adam, was created on the sixth day.

5. That the first woman, Eve, was formed of a rib taken from the side of Adam.

6. That Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years, and his immediate posterity attained a similar longevity.

7. That the primitive seat of the human species was in western central Asia.

8. That after the lapse of about 1,656 years, a universal deluge destroyed all the posterity of Adam, except Noah and his family; and all animals, except those preserved in the "ark" with Noah.

9. That all the existing races of men are descended from Noah.

10. That the black races of Africa are descended from Ham, a son of Noah.

With this traditional understanding of the Hebrew documents, our standard English translation of them was framed to give expression to such conceptions; and these have very generally been received as representing the facts touching the origin and early history of the world and its inhabitants.

In glancing over this series of propositions, we are at once impressed by a remarkable circumstance. Save the enunciation of the supernatural origin of all things, these statements all relate to questions touching the order of the natural world. They concern things about which it is supposable something might be learned by observation and investigation. They are all subjects which fall under the legitimate cognizance of what we call "science." The truth of these nine propositions is neither self-evident nor to be confirmed by any à priori reasoning. The test of their truth must arise from investigations of the strictly scientific order. If we accept them as true, on the strength of ancient tradition or high authority, they are still secular truths, and fully amenable to the results of scientific research; and, moreover, tradition and authority are, in turn, amenable themselves to the test of rigorous examination.

The allegation that the world was originated about six thousand years ago, and that the process covered six literal days, is one which may be examined in all the light which the sciences of geology and cosmogony are able to throw upon it. That the first man came into existence but six thousand years ago, and, with his immediate successors, attained an age ten

times as great as modern men, is a question to be examined in the light of anthropology, ethnology, archæology and history. That the first woman was framed from a rib of the first man is a statement of the scientific order, which must be examined in the light of all organic analogies. That the western center of Asia was the primitive seat of the human species, can certainly be confirmed or discredited by researches. touching early traditions, migrations and monumental records. That a deluge swept over the world 4,227 years ago which destroyed all animal life, except Noah and his family and the animals with him in the ark, is a proposition which it is perfectly legitimate to examine in the light of human and zoological history, and the relations of organic life to land, water, climate and other conditions. That the black and brown races are descended from a white ancestor, and that all their racial divergence has taken place within little more than 4,000 years, is a proposition which may be fairly tested by the analogies of what we have observed during the historic period.

I wish also squarely to admit that, in a search after truth, we are not foreordained to that mode of investigation known as "scientific." If there be any other method of attaining to the discovery of truth, it is not only open to us, but candor compels us to avail ourselves of it. It is conceivable that psychology or metaphysics may afford ground for valid inference on certain points. It is proper to remember, also, that starting as we do, with a recognition of creative agency in the world, it is always allowable to suppose that any result not yet traceable to natural antecedents has come into existence by the direct action of supernatural power. It may be proper, also, to enunciate here the fundamental principle that,