It is to De Guignes that we owe the discovery of this fact, the importance of which is evident. He revealed to Europe what he had learnt in Chinese books. These books speak of a country called Fou-Sang, situated at a distance, to the east of China far beyond the limits of Asia. De Guignes did not hesitate to identify it with America. To the proofs drawn from the Chinese books, he added some isolated and hitherto forgotten facts which were borrowed from Europeans, from George Horne, Gomara, etc. The work of the French Orientalist was received with a very singular, yet accountable repugnance. Apart from the mistrust excited by every unexpected discovery, many people were annoyed to find that Europeans had been preceded by Asiatics in the New World; it seemed to them to be dethroning Christopher Columbus. A Prussian, who had become a naturalized Frenchman, gave the support of his great learning to all who required no more than the contradiction of the fact, and it was almost unanimously agreed that De Guignes had deceived himself. More justice is now done to him, and anyone who will study the question in an unprejudiced spirit, cannot but acknowledge that he is right. Klaproth held that Fou-Sang was nothing else than Japan. He forgot that the country of which the Chinese writers spoke contained copper, gold and silver, but no iron. This characteristic, which is inapplicable to Japan, agrees, on the contrary, in every respect with America. To support his assertion, he maintained that the Chinese could neither recognize their direction nor measure distances in their voyages with precision. He forgot that they were acquainted with the compass 2000 years before our era, and that they possessed maps far superior to the vague conjectures of the Middle Ages. As to the supposed error in distance of which Klaproth speaks, there was no such thing. Paravey informs us that Fou-Sang was placed at a distance of 20,000 _Li_ from China. Now a Li, according to M. Pothier, is equal to 444·5 metres (486 yards). In following the course of the Kouro-Sivo, these numbers would exactly bring us to California, where the abandoned junks were stranded; they prove what was indicated by the theory, that this current had been the route for voyages to and from America. Paravey has published a facsimile of a Chinese drawing representing a lama. This at once answers one of the objections of Klaproth, and carries us considerably to the south of California. Amongst the productions of Fou-Sang the Chinese authors mention the _horse_, which, as we know, did not exist in America. It is clear that they called by this name the animal which in Peru was used as a beast of burden. This habit of calling by a common name species which are known and new species which resemble them in certain respects, certainly existed elsewhere than in China. This habit led the Conquestadores to call the puma a _lion_, and the bison a _cow_.