have this connexion, three-fifths resemble the Manchou, the Tongouse, the Mongal, and the Samoyed; and two-fifths, the Celtic and Tchoud, the Biscayan, the Coptic, and Congo languages. These words have been found by comparing the whole of the American languages with the whole of those of the Old World; for hitherto we are acquainted with no American idiom which seems to have an exclusive correspondence with any of the Asiatic, African, or European tongues.” {293} Humboldt and others considered these words as brought into America by recent immigrants; an idea resting on no proof, and which seems at once refuted by the common words being chiefly those which represent primary ideas; besides, we now know, what was not formerly perceived or admitted, that there are great affinities of structure also. I may here refer to a curious mathematical calculation by Dr. Thomas Young, to the effect, that if three words coincide in two different languages, it is ten to one they must be derived in both cases from some parent language, or introduced in some other manner. “Six words would give more,” he says, “than seventeen hundred to one, and eight near 100,000, so that in these cases the evidence would be little short of absolute certainty.” He instances the following words to shew a connexion between the ancient Egyptian and the Biscayan:— BISCAYAN. EGYPTIAN. _New_ Beria Beri. _A dog_ Ora Whor. _Little_ Gutchi Kudchi. _Bread_ Ognia Oik. _A wolf_ Otgsa Ounsh. _Seven_ Shashpi Shashf. Now, as there are, according to Humboldt, one hundred and seventy words in common between the languages of the new and old continents, and many of these are expressive of the most primitive ideas, there is, by Dr. Young’s calculation, overpowering proof of the original connexion of the American and other human families. This completes the slight outline which I have been able to give, of the evidence for the various races of men being descended from one stock. It cannot be considered as conclusive, and there are many eminent persons who deem the opposite idea the more probable; but I must say that, without the least regard to any other kind of evidence, that which physiology and philology present seems to me decidedly favourable to the idea of a single origin.