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 fo 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 leaft 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 thofe which muft be prefent to every nation barbarous or civilized, with the inflexions of their nouns and verbs, their principles of reigmen and concord, and thefe depofited in all the public libra- ries, it would furnifli opportunities to thofe fkilled in the languages of the old world to compare them with thefe, now, or at any future time, and hence to conftruft the beft evidence of the derivation of this part of the human race.
But imperfeft as is our knowledge of the tongues fpoken in America, it fuffices to difcover the following remarkable faft.