The question of the migration of the Swastika and of the objects on which it was marked, which furnished its only means of transportation, remains to be considered. It is proposed to examine, in a cursory manner perhaps, not only the migration of the Swastika itself, but some of these objects, spindle whorls especially, with a view to discover by similarity or peculiarity of form or decoration any relationship they may have had with each other when found in distant countries and used by different peoples. Thus, we may be able to open the way to a consideration of the question whether this similarity of Swastikas or other decorations, or of the objects on which they were placed, resulted from the migration of or contact or communication between distant peoples, or was it accidental and the result of independent discoveries and duplicate inventions--an evidence of the parallelism of human thought? Dr. Brinton, in a communication before the American Philosophical Society,[307] starts out with a polemical discussion upon the subject of the migration of the Swastika and its possible American migration, as follows: My intention is to combat the opinion of those writers who, like Dr. Hamy, M. Beauvois, and many others, assert that because certain well-known Oriental symbols, as the Ta Ki, the Triskeles, the Svastika, and the cross, are found among the American aborigines, they are evidence of Mongolian, Buddhistic, Christian, or Aryan immigrations previous to the discovery by Columbus, and I shall also try to show that the position is erroneous of those who, like William H. Holmes, of the Bureau of Ethnology, maintain "that it is impossible to give a satisfactory explanation of the religious significance of the cross as a religious symbol in America." In opposition to both these views, I propose to show that the primary significance of all these widely extended symbols is quite clear, and that they can be shown to have arisen from certain fixed relations of man to his environment, the same everywhere, and hence suggesting the same graphic representations among tribes most divergent in location and race, and, therefore, that such symbols are of little value in tracing ethnic affinities or the currents of civilization. I am sorry to be compelled to differ with Dr. Brinton in these views. I may not attempt much argument upon this branch of the subject, but whatever argument is presented will be in opposition to this view, as not being borne out by the evidence. Of course, the largest portion of the discussion of this subject must consist of theory and argument, but such facts as are known, when subjected to an analysis of reason, seem to produce a result contrary to that announced by Dr. Brinton.