Stephens, in the appendix of vol. ii. of _Incidents of Travel in Yucatan_, gives a communication from Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who writes: "The figure of the human hand is used by the North American Indians to denote supplication to the Deity or Great Spirit.... In the course of many years' residence on the frontiers, including various journeyings among the tribes, I have had frequent occasion to remark the use of the hand alone as a symbol, but it has generally been a symbol applied to the naked body after its preparation and decoration for sacred or festive dances. And the fact deserves further consideration from these preparations being generally made in the arcanum of the medicine or secret lodge or some other private place, and with the skill of the priest's, or medicine man's, or juggler's art. The mode of applying it in these cases is by smearing the hand of the operator with white or coloured clay, and impressing it on the breast, the shoulder, or other part of the body. The idea is thus conveyed that a secret influence, a charm, a mystic power, is given to the dancer, arising from his sanctity or his proficiency in the occult arts. This use of the hand is not confined to a single tribe of people. I have noticed it alike, among the Dacotahs, the Winnebagoes, and other Western tribes, as among the numerous branches of the Red Race still located east of the Mississippi River above the latitude of 42 degrees who speak dialects of the Algonquin languages." There is thus no doubt that the "red hand" of the Mayans had its analogy among the tribes of North America; and thus by itself it is of little moment in the present argument. But we have made a singular and most important discovery. On the friezes of the Stupa of Bharahat in India, found in 1873 by Sir Alexander Cunningham--the date of the building of which is accepted as approximately 200 B.C.--are rows of hands carved. These hands are precisely similar in shape to those we discovered in great numbers on the ruins in the island of Cozumel, and to those we saw on other Mayan ruins. There can be no doubt as to the identity of this symbolic decoration, and we believe that here exists a most important link in the chain of evidence connecting America and the East. There are those who will at once declare that the very fact that the symbol can be shown to have had a wide use in North America forbids the idea that it came from the East. This is clearly not so. If the date which we shall suggest as the likely one for the arrival of the Eastern immigrants in Central America be even approximately accurate, there would be ample time for the symbol to spread sufficiently into the north for Schoolcraft in the middle of the nineteenth century to find it broadcast among very distant tribes. Among such a proverbially superstitious race as the American Indians, such a symbol would rapidly "catch on," and the fact that a very extended trade existed between the