We noticed in the early part of this article the remarkable present development of poetry in Canada. Entirely different from Lampman and Campbell and Reade in his method and style is Bliss Carman, one of the most promising of the bright band of intellectual workers hailing from Nova William Kingsford. Scotia. One of the first things which attracts the attention of the critical reader is the wonderful phrasing which runs through all his work. He possesses a faculty of immediately kindling the imagination of his reader and calling up with a few striking words a whole series of pictures - vivid or shadowy and mystic, according to the dominant mood. His style is quite peculiar to himself. There is no evidence of the influence of any other writer in a line of his poetry. His work is more purely lyrical than that of any other American poet; indeed, the London Academy in a recent review places him in the first rank of contemporary lyrical writers. He never forgets the high character of his calling, and his work is saturated with an ideality which necessarily removes it largely out of the sympathies of the masses. He believes with Poe in the beauty of the weird, and there is an element of delicate weirdness in nearly all his productions; but it never degenerates into the merely horrible. The spiritual touch is always there. His language is invariably melodious, but it contains no suggestion of effeminacy or a straining after effect. A rugged strength underlies it all. Mr. Carman is a wellknown figure in the literary circles of Boston, where he spent some years and has many cherished associations; but in his native land he is less widely known than many of his contemporaries, for the reason that much of his best work has been too lengthy for publication in the magazines. A volume of poems from his pen will be issued by a Boston firm this fall. He is an occasional contributor to the Century and other leading American and English magazines, and is literary editor of the New York Independent. It will be seen that Canada takes a high position in the realm of science, and even in belles lettres is doing remarkably well, when her position as a colony and not a nation is duly considered. The United States had no such list as I have enumerated in the old colonial days; and removing the artificial barrier between the two countries to-day, it is easily seen that Canada has practically shared in the development of American literature, in no small degree. FROM TO LAKE HURON. By William Wilfred Campbell. 'ROM east to west, from north to south, where heaven's dreams are furled, You shine and shake and pulse and beat about the summer world. Past river mouth and lonely crag your sinuous outlines run, Where half a hundred miles of beach lies lapping in the sun; O Huron glad, O Huron strong, O limpid, laughing, free, AN INVOCATION. By Archibald Lampman. PIRIT of joy and that enchanted air I dreamed and wandered hand in hand of thine, A gnawing flame that robbed my songs away, Master of mine, and Lord of light and ease, THE ABNAKIS. By James P. Baxter. HE origin and history these peoples flourished, he would soon of the Pre-Columbian have experienced a loss of most of the inhabitants of America conditions which make for civilization, possess for the student and long before reaching the North Atlanof anthropology an tic seaboard he would have found himself ever increasing inter- face to face with an almost hopeless barest. Not only is his barism. The questions which would perattention attracted at sistently have presented themselves to him every turn by constantly accumulating col- are the same which present themselves to lections of the archaic belongings of the the student who to-day, in thought, takes peoples who once occupied this vast con- the same journey: questions which relate tinent, but the facilities presented for ex- to origin and antiquity, and to which anploration are such that he may with a swers must largely be derived from arminimum expenditure of physical and chæological remains, though we may learn pecuniary capital personally study the something from early explorers, and may most interesting remains, which a decade not altogether overlook tradition. ago could be reached only by exhausting and dangerous adventure. When Europeans, the Spaniard and Englishman, first set foot upon this continent, the one upon its southern, the other upon its northern shores, they found it peopled with men unlike themselves in complexion, language, and modes of life. If they travelled in any direction, they found that these people themselves differed in language and appearance, as well as in those arts which minister to man's comfort and promote his civilization. Without regard to these differences, they applied to them all the common, and perhaps not wholly inappropriate title of Indians, which for convenience we may properly adopt. There was, however, a wide difference between the men who occupied the southern and those who occupied the northern portion of the continent, between the Aztecs of Mexico, and the Abnakis of Maine. The former had attained a degree of civilization which we hardly yet appreciate, but of which we are learning much through study of their architectural, sculptural, and textual remains, which almost rival some of the admired achievements of old world art; while the latter lived in rude booths or tents of bark and wandered from place to place, half naked, or, at best clothed with the skins of savage beasts, to which they seemed akin. Indeed, had one traversed the continent northward from the Gulf of Mexico, while 66 An early theory of the origin of the Indians of America was that they were emigrants from the Asiatic coast, probably by way of Behring Strait; but this theory was in time overshadowed by that advanced by Morton, based upon that illustrious scientist's study of the crania of tribes inhabiting widely separated parts of the continent. This theory briefly stated was, that the Indians of America were indigenous to the continent; that they differed from all other races in essential particulars, not excepting the Mongolian race; that the analogies of language, of civil and religious institutions, and the arts, were derived from a possible communication with Asian peoples or, perhaps, from mere coincidences arising from similar wants and impulses in nations inhabiting similar latitudes "; that the Indian inhabitants of America, excepting the polar tribes, were of one race and species, "but of two great families, which resemble each other in physical, but differ in intellectual character"; and finally, that all the crania which he had studied belonged to "the same race, and probably to the Toltecan family." To this theory Agassiz lent the weight of his great name, as it so well accorded with his own theory, that "men must have originated in nations, as the bees have originated in swarms, and as the different social plants have covered the extensive tracts over which they have naturally spread." It is, however, evident that the autochthonic theory, which for a time passed almost unquestioned, is fast losing ground; indeed, it has become evident that, in accepting it, Agassiz did not submit it to the test to which he was wont to subject questions within his own special field of investigation, but welcomed it as favoring a scheme to which he had become wedded. This change in opinion finds its warrant in Morton's own field of cranial investigation, which has been widely cultivated since his day, disclosing faults in some of his most important deductions. Besides, a comparative study of the handiwork and lingual characteristics of the Indian peoples has been entered upon, which has already disclosed a vein that promises to furnish a wealth of archæological knowledge. Again is our attention drawn to the high tablelands of Asia, which we now know to be geologically the earliest portion of the globe suited to man's abode. Of course, we at once face here the question of man's origin, certainly a pertinent one, but altogether beyond the scope of the present inquiry. It may, however, be said in passing, that if the theory of evolution as applied to man be true, the American ape could not have been the progenitor of the American man. This is the opinion of evolutionists upon the subject, including Darwin, who declares that "man unquestionably belongs in his dentition, in the structure of his nostrils, and in some other respects, to the Catarhine, or old world division," and that "it would be against all probability to suppose that some ancient new world species had varied, and had thus produced a man-like creature with all the distinctive characters proper to the old world division, losing at the same time all its own distinctive characters. He concludes that "there can, consequently, hardly be a doubt, that man is an offshoot from the old world Simian stem, and that under a genealogical point of view he must be classed with the Catarhine division." As the theory that the American man is indigenous to the American soil has lost ground, the theory of the unity of the human family has again come to the front, and considerable testimony has been adduced in its support. The old belief, too, that human life dawned upon Asian soil has been revived, and fresh arguments have sprung up in its support. A remarkable correspondence between the peoples of the two continents is found to exist; indeed, a comparison of the people living upon opposite sides of Behring Strait shows them to scarcely differ from each other. On the Asiatic side the Chuckchis well know that the two continents are connected by submarine banks, and the tradition is still current that they were once joined by an isthmus which mysteriously subsided. A marked resemblance between some of the Chuckchis and the Dakotas has been observed. At the same time, it is obvious the Chuckchis represent one and the same type of ancient men with the Eskimos on the American side, a view which is strengthened by a study of their customs, and particularly of their implements, which are analogous to those of the stone age in Europe and America. If from this point we proceed to study the tribes of the old continent, we shall find still more remarkable resemblances between them and the Indian tribes of America. Much has been written about the remarkable mounds of the western portion of the continent, and enthusiasts have declared that they were the remains of an ancient civilization, which once extended over a considerable portion of the continent. But there is nothing to warrant such a conclusion. These mounds are of varied character, some being strictly sepulchral, others defensive, and still others, in the form of elevated plateaus of remarkable extent, most probably constructed for building sites, a purpose to which they were admirably adapted, since from these elevated situations the inhabitants could more readily perceive the approach of an enemy and more easily resist his attack. This custom of mound building is not peculiar to this continent. Extensive mounds exist among the Turcomans and other Asiatic peoples. One of these, on the banks of the Turgai, is upwards of a hundred feet in height and nearly a thousand feet in circumference. Nor is mound building yet obsolete, for such structures are still reared above noted chiefs by their friends, who each contribute a certain number of baskets of earth to their erection. Other customs, too, of the nomadic tribes of the old continent are remarkably similar to those of some of the American tribes. Among these are the adoption of animal names, the artificial flattening of the skull, the burial of the dead upon the branches of trees, the ideographic method of recording thought, various religious observances, and a contempt of labor, which is left to be performed by women. Space will not permit a comparison of the art and especially the architecture of the Mayas and Aztecs with those of the more civilized peoples of the old continent; but here are to be found the strongest proofs of relationship, if we except lingual affinities, from a thorough study of which we may expect still stronger proofs. more When the tide of emigration to America first began we cannot learn. It is not impossible that at this period, which antedated the glacial epoch, the northern portions of the two continents were united. In that remote time a temperate climate prevailed in regions now locked in eternal ice and swept at all seasons by devastating storms. When we view these regions now so sterile and forbidding, impenetrable even to the most daring adventure, we can hardly realize that this was the ancestral home of most of those plants and animals with which we are now so familiar in New England and other portions of the North Temperate Zone, and that here man flourished amid conditions not unfavorable to his growth and comfort; yet we have sufficient evidence to warrant such belief. A time came, however, when a change took place, a change ascribed with much force to wellknown astronomical facts, the combined effect of the progress of the equinoxes and of the changing eccentricity of the earth's orbit, a change when winter increased in severity, and the glaciers from the farther north began to move south ward. The ice age had set in. As the glacial streams slowly advanced and united, they formed in time a vast ice belt, stretching across the continent, and year by year continued moving toward the south. In its general form it was bow-shaped, and when its southern limit was reached its most advanced portion rested on the southern line of Illinois, its western arm curving sharply toward the northwest, leaving uninvaded the territory occupied by Nebraska and a portion of Dakota and Montana, and its eastern arm extending northeastward until it met the sea-coast. New England was buried under a moving mass of ice, which found in the Atlantic an obstacle to its farther progress. Before the ever-advancing ice flood, animals and men retreated. The men who occupied the extreme northern territory, rendered uninhabitable by the irresistible power which blighted everything in its course, were forced upon the tribes occupying more southern regions, which must have resulted in continual warfare. How long the northern portion of the continent was enveloped in ice cannot be accurately determined; but in time this dreary scene of Arctic sterility began to change. Attacked by a power which it could not resist, the deadly ice began its retreat northwards, which it continued until it reached its present limit. The men who dwelt upon its border slowly followed, forced back probably in many cases by foes. In their long wanderings, many of the rude belongings of these people, whom many archæologists believe to be the ancestors of the present Eskimos, must have been lost, and those of an imperishable nature we should expect to find among the debris left behind by the glaciers. In this we are not disappointed. Numerous rudely chipped implements of stone, similar in form to the stone implements found in more recent deposits, but as unlike them as early Saxon implements are unlike the finished productions of the English people of the nineteenth century, are found in deposits indisputably belonging to the glacial period. These paleolithic or ancient stone implements, so called to distinguish them from neolithic or new stone implements, are known by their rudely chipped surfaces, unfinished cutting edges and irregularity of form; while neolithic implements are often finely finished, with cutting edges smoothly and sharply ground, and symmetrical in form, showing considerable skill in their manufacture. Although we have attempted to briefly outline the theory believed to be most in accord with present archæological knowledge respecting the origin of the Indian tribes of America, it has not been our purpose to consider the more civilized peoples of the extreme South. In outlining the broader theory, we have hoped to attain a point of view from which we could more intelligently consider a branch of a great family of Indians, who occupied the north |