En ir de Noruega a Islandia, de Islandia a Groenlandia, de Groenlandia a Labrador, el primer trayecto es el más ancho.
y habiéndose practicado esto desde los primeros tiempos de los que tenemos noticia de aquella parte de la tierra, no es difícil suponer que los trayectos subsiguientes hayan podido ser atravesados a veces.
Nuevamente, los recientes descubrimientos del capitán Cook, navegando desde Kamchatka hasta California, han demostrado que si los dos continentes de Asia y América están separados en absoluto, es únicamente por un estrecho angosto.
So that from this fide alfo, inhabitants may have pafled into America : and the refemblance between the Indians of Ame- rica and the eaftern inhabitants of Afia, would induce us to conjedure, that the former are the defcendants of the latter, or the latter of the former: excepting indeed the Efkimaux, who, from the fame circumftance of refemblance, and from in- dentity of language, mud be derived from the Groenlanders, and thefe probably from fome of the northern parts of the old continent. A knowledge of their feve- ral languages would be the mod: certain evidence of their derivation which could be produced. In fad, it is the beft proof of the affinity of nations which ever can be referred to. How many ages have elapfed fmce the Enghfh, the Dutch, the Germans, the Swifs, the Norwegians, Danes and Swedes have feparated from their common ftock? Yet how many more mufl elapfe before the proofs of their common origin, which exifl in their feveral languages, will difappear? It is to be lamented then, very much to be lamented, that we have fuffered so many of the In- dian tribes already to extinguifh, without our having previoufly colledletl and depo- C c fited in the records of literature, the gene- ral rudiments at leat of the languages they fpoke. Were vocabularies formed of all the languages fpoken in North and South America, preferving their appella- tions of the moft common objeds in na- ture, of those which muft be prefent to every nation