Humboldt argued that, "as the western coasts of the American continent trend from north-west to south-east, and the eastern coasts of Asia in the opposite direction, the distance between the two continents in 45 degrees of latitude, or in the temperate zone, which is most favourable to mental development, is too considerable to admit of the probability of such an accidental settlement taking place in that latitude. We must then assume the first landing to have been made in the inhospitable climate of from 55 to 65 degrees, and that the civilisation thus introduced, like the general movement of population in America, has proceeded by successive stations from north to south."* (* Humboldt "Aspects of Nature" volume 2 176.) If we are obliged to assume that the people themselves came from the old world, such an origin might be sought for them as well as any other; but all research since Humboldt's time has favoured the idea that there are no signs of the Nahuatls being a newer people than the nations of Asia. And if it is not the derivation of the people, but of some coincidences in their observances and knowledge, we may seek for it some simpler solution than the migration of a whole people down through North to Central America. That solution is, I believe, to be found in the fact, not taken into consideration by Humboldt, that the great Japanese current, after traversing the eastern coast of Japan, sends one large branch nearly directly east across the Pacific to the coast of California, and an offshoot from it passes southward along the Mexican coast and as far as the western coast of Central America. In Kotzebue's narrative of his voyage round the world, he says: "Looking over Adams' diary, I found the following notice--'Brig Forester, March 24, 1815, at sea, upon the coast of California, latitude 32 degrees 45 seconds north, longitude 133 degrees 3 minutes west. We saw this morning, at a short distance, a ship, the confused state of whose sails showed that they wanted assistance. We bent our course towards her, and made out the distressed vessel to be Japanese, which had lost both mast and helm. Only three dying Japanese, the captain and two sailors, were found in the vessel. We took these unfortunate people on board our brig, and, after four months' nursing, they entirely recovered. We learned from these people that they had sailed from the harbour of Osaka, in Japan, bound for another seaport, but were overtaken by a storm, in which they lost the helm and mast. Till that day their ship had been drifting about, a mere butt for the winds and waves, during seventeen months; and of thirty-five men only three remained, all the others having died of hunger.'" Is it not likely that in ancient times such accidents may have occurred again and again, and that information of the astronomical and chronological systems of eastern Asia may thus have been brought to the Nahuatls, who, from the ease with which they embraced the religion of the Spaniards,