“Whence did the refinement of these more polished races [of America] come? Was it only a higher development of the same Indian character, which we see, in the more northern latitudes, defying every attempt at permanent civilization? Was it engrafted on a race of higher order in the scale originally, but self-instructed, working its way upward by its own powers? Was it, in short, an indigenous civilization? or was it borrowed, in some degree, from the nations of the Eastern world? If indigenous, how are we to explain the singular coincidence with the East in institutions and opinions? If Oriental, how shall we account for the great dissimilarity in language, and for the ignorance of some of the most simple and useful arts, which, once known, it would seem scarcely possible should have been forgotten? This is the riddle of the Sphinx, which no Œdipus has yet had the ingenuity to solve.” In the light of the facts brought together in the present memoir, it requires no Œdipus to answer the riddle. For the only two objections which Prescott raises in opposition to the great mass of evidence he cites in favour of the derivation of American civilization from the Old World can easily be disposed of. Rivers has completely disposed of one by his demonstration of the fact that people—moreover those on the direct route across the Pacific to America—do actually “forget simple and useful arts” (=65=). The other objection is equally easily disposed of, when it is remembered that it requires only a few people of higher culture to leaven a large mass of lower culture with the elements of a higher civilization (see also on this point, Rivers, =68=). Moreover, if language is made a test, the affinities of the various American tribes one with the other would have to be denied. Thus, the language difficulty cuts both ways. But when we have disposed of his objections, the whole of his admirable summary then becomes valid as an argument in favour of the derivation of American culture from Asia across the Pacific.