Since then it has become the fashion on the part of most ethnologists either contemptuously to put aside the probability or even the possibility of the derivation of American civilization from the Old World (characteristic examples of this attitude will be found in Fewkes’ address, =18=, and Keane’s text-book, =41=). On the other side the discussion has been seriously compromised from time to time by a wholly uncritical and often recklessly inexact use of the evidence in support of the reality of the contact, which has to some extent prejudiced the serious discussion of the problem. Perhaps the least objectionable of such unfortunate attempts are Macmillan Brown’s (=7=) and Enoch’s books (=16=). The former has been led astray by grotesque errors in chronology and the failure to realize that useful arts can be lost. Enoch, on the other hand, has collected a large series of interesting but incompatible statements, and has made no serious attempt to sift or assimilate them. But from time to time serious students, proceeding with the caution befitting the discussion of so difficult a problem, have definitely expressed their adherence to the view that elements of culture did spread across, or around, the Pacific from Asia to America (=8=; =9=; =10=; =15=; =20=; =21=; =29=; =30=; =38=; =48=; =49=; =50=; =51=; =60=; =73=; =102=; =103= and =105=). Among modern demonstrations I would especially call attention to the evidence collected by Dall (=73=, p. 395), Cyrus Thomas (=73=, p. 396), Tylor (=102=) and Zelia Nuttall (=49= and =50=), and of the older literature the remarkable statement of Ellis (=15=, p. 117). [In Mrs. Nuttall’s monograph (=49=) there is a great deal, especially in the introductory part, to which serious objection must be taken: but in spite of the strong bias in favour of “psychological explanation” with which she started, eventually she was compelled to admit the force of the evidence for the spread of culture.] For detailed statements concerning the discussions of this problem in the past the reader is referred to Bancroft’s excellent summary (=3=), which also supplies a wonderfully rich storehouse of facts and traditions wholly corroborative of the conclusions at which I have arrived in the present memoir. I find it difficult to conceive how there could ever have been any doubt about the matter on the part of anyone who knows his “Bancroft.” It will naturally be asked, if the case in proof of the actual diffusion of culture from Asia to America is so overwhelmingly convincing, on what grounds is assent refused? One school (of which the most characteristic utterance that I know of is Fewkes’ presidential address, =18=) refuses to discuss the evidence: with pontifical solemnity it lays down the dogma of independent evolution as an infallible principle which it is almost sacrilege to question. I can best illustrate the methods of the other school of reactionaries by a sample of its dialectic.