“Civilization,” says Tylor, “is a plant much oftener propagated than developed;”[2] and the latest ethnographic memoir that comes to hand voices the same sentiment: “It is and has always been much easier to borrow an idea from one’s neighbors than to originate a new idea; and transmission of cultural elements, which in all ages has taken place in a great many different ways, is and has been one of the greatest promoters of cultural development.”[3] A stock illustration of cultural assimilation is that of the Japanese, who in the nineteenth century adopted our scientific and technological civilization ready-made, just as at an earlier period they had acquired wholesale the culture of China. It is essential to note that it is not always the people of lower culture who remain passive recipients in the process of diffusion. This is strikingly shown by the spread of Indian corn. The white colonist “did not simply borrow the maize seed and then in conformity with his already established agricultural methods, or on original lines, develop a maize culture of his own,” but “took over the entire material complex of maize culture” as found among the aborigines.[4] The history of Indian corn also illustrates the remarkable rapidity with which cultural possessions may travel over the globe. Unknown in the Old World prior to the discovery of America, it is mentioned as known in Europe in 1539 and had reached China between 1540 and 1570.[5] The question naturally arises here, whether this process of diffusion, which in modern times is a matter of direct observation, could have been of importance during the earlier periods of human history when means of communication were of a more primitive order. So far as this point is concerned, we must always remember that methods of transportation progressed very slightly from the invention of the wheeled cart until the most recent times. As Montelius suggests, the periods of 1700 B. C. and 1700 A. D. differed far less in this regard than might be supposed on superficial consideration. Yet we know the imperfection of facilities for travel did not prevent dissemination of culture in historic times.