America has, moreover, its distinct races with which the foreign elements have more or less blended. She has also had her _quaternary man_. This is a fact which must not be overlooked, and by which the problem is singularly complicated. We shall presently see that geological revolutions do not involve the disappearance of existing human races. There can be no doubt that in America there are descendants of men who were contemporary with the mastodon, just as, in Europe, we find the descendants of those who were contemporaries of the mammoth. Unfortunately our knowledge of the physical characters of the American fossil man is as yet very slight. III. It does not, however, seem to me the less probable that the most pronounced ethnological elements, such as White, Yellow, and Black, which we encounter at the present time, have overspread this continent by means of migration. This fact is proved by history in a certain number of cases; and some very simple considerations seem to me to render others no less probable. For example, we only find black men in America in those places which are washed by either the Kouro-Sivo, or the Equatorial Current of the Atlantic or its divisions. A glance at the maps of Captain Kerhallet will at once show us the rarity and the distribution of these tribes. It is evident that the more or less pure black elements have been brought from the Asiatic Archipelagos and from Africa through some accident at sea; they have there mixed with the local races, and have formed those small isolated groups which are distinguished by their colour from the surrounding tribes. The presence of Semitic types in America, certain traditions of Guiana, and the use in this country of a weapon entirely characteristic of the ancient Canary Islanders, can be easily explained in the same manner, and the explanation rests upon positive facts. Twice during the last century, in 1731 and 1764, small ships passing from one point of the Canary Islands to another have been driven by storms into the region of the trade winds and equatorial current, and have drifted as far as America. What has happened in our time must often have happened before. We cannot then be surprised at finding upon the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, tribes which are more or less related to the African Whites by their physical characters. IV. The geographical position of the continents at once explains why the yellow type has so many representatives in America. Supposing, which seems to be contradicted by some evidences, that the coast-lines have not altered since the latest geological era, the facilities presented by the passage are quite sufficient, and the Asiatic races have profited by them to a considerable extent. America was known to them long before Europeans possessed anything beyond legends on this subject, the meaning of which is still hotly disputed.