[I-64] Though the presumption may be in favor of communication by Bering Strait, yet the phenomena in the present state of our knowledge, favors the Aleutian route. _Latham's Comp. Phil._, p. 384. The Aleutian archipelago is 'probably the main route by which the old continent must have peopled the new. Behring's Straits, though ... they were doubtless one channel of communication, just as certainly as if their place had been occupied by solid land, were yet, in all likelihood, only of subordinate utility in the premises, when compared with the more accessible and commodious bridge towards the south.' _Simpson's Nar._, vol. ii., p. 225. 'There is no improbability that the early Asiatics reached the western shores of America through the islands of the Pacific.' The trace of the progress of the red and partially civilized man from Oriental Asia was left on these islands. _Willson's Amer. Hist._, pp. 92-3. The first discoveries were made along the coast and from island to island; the American immigrants would have come by the Aleutian Isles. _Brasseur de Bourbourg_, _Hist. Nat. Civ._, tom. i., p. 10. To come by Aleutian islands presents not nearly so great a difficulty as the migrations among Pacific Islands. _Prescott's Mex._, vol. iii., p. 374. Immigration from Asia 'appears to have taken place mostly by the Aleuthian islands.' _Smith's Human Species_, p. 238.
[I-65] Some of the early writers were of course ignorant of the existence of any strait separating America from Asia; thus Acosta--who dares not assume, in opposition to the Bible, that the flood did not extend to America, or that a new creation took place there--accounts for the great variety of animals by supposing that the new continent is in close proximity to if not actually connected with the Old World at its northern and southern ends, and that the people and animals saved in the ark spread gradually by these routes over the whole land. _Hist. de las Ynd._, pp. 68-73, 81; _West und Ost Indischer Lustgart_, pt i., pp. 8-9. See also _Montanus_, _Nieuwe Weereld_, pp. 38-42; _Gottfriedt_, _Newe Welt_, p. 4; _Villagutierre_, _Hist. Conq. Itza_, pp. 26-8. Clavigero produces instances to show that upheavals, engulfings, and separations of land have been quite common, and thinks that American traditions of destructions refer to such disasters. He also shows that certain animals could have passed only by a tropic, others only by an arctic road. He accordingly supposes that America was formerly connected with Africa at the latitude of the Cape Verde islands, with Asia in the north, and perhaps with Europe by Greenland. _Storia Ant. del Messico_, tom. iv., pp. 27-44. The great objection to a migration by way of the cold latitude of Bering Strait, says a writer in the _Historical Magazine_, vol. i., p. 285, is that tropic animals never could have passed that way. He apparently rejects or has never heard of the theory of change in zones. See farther, concerning joining of continents, and communication by Bering Strait: _Warden_, _Recherches_, pp. 202, 221; _Humboldt_, _Exam. Crit._, tom. ii., p. 68, et seq.; _Snowden's Hist. N. and S. Amer._, p. 198; _Taylor_, in _Cal. Farmer_, Sept. 12, 1862; _Priest's Amer. Antiq._, pp. 62-3, 82-3; _Valois_, _Mexique_, p. 197; _Adair's Amer. Ind._, p. 219. Bradford denies emphatically that there ever was any connection between America and Asia. 'It has been supposed,' he writes, 'that a vast tract of land, now submerged beneath the waters of the Pacific Ocean, once connected Asia and America.... The arguments in favor of this opinion are predicated upon that portion of the Scriptures, relating to the "division" of the earth in the days of Peleg, which is thought to indicate a physical division,--upon the analogies between the Peruvians, Mexicans and Polynesians ... and upon the difficulty of accounting in any other manner for the presence of some kinds of animals in America.' After demolishing these three bases of opinion, he adds: 'this conjectured terrestrial communication never existed, a conclusion substantiated, in some measure, by geological testimony.' _Amer. Antiq._, pp. 222-8. Mr Bradford's argument, in addition to being thoughtful and ingenious, is supported by facts, and will amply repay a perusal.