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 the very earliest intrusion, the activities of the aborigines were changed and accultured from abroad. These influences on the Atlantic side were by Scandinavians; by English and French in Canada and the United States; and by the French, Spanish, and Portuguese in Middle and South America. On the western side the Russians, in the northern parts, brought not only the arts of Siberia and of the uncultured elements in Russian population; but, having been engaged in traffic throughout the Pacific ocean and having used the Sandwich islands as headquarters for much of their trade, abundant evidences exist of their contact, not only with the Eskimo, but with the Indians of southeastern Alaska. It shows itself in the Polynesian motives on Eskimo carvings and in tools which are evidently of Polynesian origin.

In western United States and throughout the entire Pacific area of Latin America there was constant contact, through the Mexicans, with the colonies of Spain in southwestern Asia and the contiguous islands. Furthermore, when it is remembered that in southern Spain there was an agglomeration of Phenician, Jewish, Arabian, Egyptian, and north African cultures, and that great numbers of Africans were early brought to this continent and mingled with the Indian populations, there is no wonder that the student of technology is constantly at his wits' end to know whether like inventions have been independently worked out, or whether they had a common source. There is no space in this brief paper to discuss this subject, but it is capable of indefinite expansion.

ZOÖTECHNIC PROVINCES

The industries of the American aborigines, in connection with the animal life of the hemisphere, may be divided into zoötechnic provinces.

In a paper published in the Smithsonian Report for 1895, under the title Influence of Environment upon Human Activities and Arts, an attempt is made to separate North America and South America into eighteen environmental areas with