New views of the origin of the tribes and nations of America / By Benjamin Smith Barton.

  • Benjamin Smith Barton
Date:
1798
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: New views of the origin of the tribes and nations of America / By Benjamin Smith Barton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Cis 9 Hugo Grotius, George De Hornn*, and an hun- dred others. Here, of courfe, the clergy take their ftand. On the other fide of the queftion, _* Thave no knowledge of what De Laet, Grotius, and De Hornn have written on this fubje&, except from Charlevoix’s Preliminary Difcourfe. any other Civil Region, along all that border of Afa: But in their grofs ignorance of Letters, and of Arts, in their Idola- try, and the fpecialties of it, in their Incivility, and many barbarous properties, they refemble the old and rude Zartars, above all the Nations of the earth. Which opinion of mine, touching the Americans def{cending from the Tartars, rather than from any other Nation in that boder of fa, after the neer vicinity of 4fa to America, this reafon above all other, may beft eftablifh and perf{wade: becaufe it is certain, that that Northeaft part of Afia pofleffed by the Zartars, 1s, if not continent with the Weft fide of America, which yet remaineth fomewhat doubtful: yet certainly, and without all doubt, it is the leaft dis-joyned by Sea, of all that Coaft of 4a, for that thofe parts of 4faand America, are continent one with the other, or at moft, dif-joyned but by fome narrow Channel of the Ocean, the ravenous and harmful Beafts, wherewith America is ftored, as Bears, Lions, Tigers, Wolves, Foxes, &c. (which men, asis likely, would never to their own harm tranfport out of the one Continent to the other) may import. For from Noahs Ark, which refted after the Deluge, in fa, all thofe Beafts muft of neceflity fetch their beginning, feeing they could not proceed by the courfe of Nature, as the un- perfect fort of living Creatures do, of Putrefaction: or if they might have Putrefaction for their parentage, or receive their original [by any other new fort of Generation] of the Earth