36 ANCIENT WARRIORS

the fact that an occasional Chinese or Japanese junk
has been cast up on the Western seaboard of America,
as evidence of what might have happened in earlier
times, but that the foundation of a race in a remote
continent could rest on such a hypothetical basis is
unconvincing.

One well-known student endeavoured to prove that
certain primitive inscriptions in Mexico were traceable
to Japanese sources, but the Japanese scholars promptly
repudiated the idea.

Some again have with less probability suggested that
the Haidas are derived from the Ainus of Yedo, but
no scientific evidence has been adduced, and as it is
asserted that the Ainus are an isolated remnant of the
Caucassian stock whereas the American Indian races
are almost certainly a differentiation of a generalized
Mongolian type, this theory is unlikely to gain
credence. The Ainus, moreover, are characterized by a
great growth of body hair which is foreign to the
Haidas, and the head shapes also will be found to
differ.

What probably real'y happened was that in early
times the ancestors of the Indian races of America
crept Eastwards from Asia across a land bridge at the
Behring Straits where even to-day the sea is only
150 feet deep, and during the pauses and retreats
which marked the glacial cycle of pleistocene times,
advanced steadily in a South-Easterly direction in
pursuit of a warmer climate. The successive waves of
this migration over a long period are probably
sufficient to account for the variations of type and
culture which mark various groups now found on the
American continent. More research is needed and
not more theories; the past has been marked by too
many theories and too little accurate research.