Note Back to Main Text — Chapter I · ANCIENT AMERICA.

If we have always been accustomed to think of races of men only as they are placed on modern maps, it at first seems strange to think of England and France as ever having been inhabited by Eskimos. Facts equally strange may be cited in abundance from zoölogy and botany. The camel is found to-day only in Arabia and Bactria; yet in all probability the camel originated in America,[17] and is an intruder into what we are accustomed to call his native deserts, just as the people of the United States are European intruders upon the soil of America. So the giant trees of Mariposa grove are now found only in California, but there was once a time when they were as common in Europe[18] as maple-trees to-day in a New England village.