Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/29

 Rh Only this, that there has long existed in Central America—in which we would embrace Southern Mexico and Yucatan—an American civilization superior to any other on this continent at the time of its discovery.

There remains still one more theory to consider: Was it possible for this civilization to have been developed by the people placed here by the Creator?

Was it possible for the Creator to place men and women here originally, without making them pass over from the other continent?

It was possible, was it probable?

Some there are who think that this was done; who claim that our continent is oldest, according to its geological formation, and that it was as likely that people passed to the eastern hemisphere from the western as that they should have passed to the western from the eastern.

It is difficult for those who hold this theory to account in any other way for the many peculiarities in American architecture, for the totally different aspect of the natives of this country from every other. They hold that it would have been impossible for all the animals of this so-called New World to have originated from the Old World: the tapirs, boa-constrictors, pumas, etc., that seem to belong to the warmer parts of America alone,—that they would have frozen in coming down from the north by way of Behring's Straits, with the Jews, even if they had originally been created in Europe or Asia.

Many wise men have at last concluded that our great continent was originally settled by two different peoples. One was an indigenous race,—created here, belonging exclusively to this country; and the other came to North America from Asia by way of Behring's Straits, or the Aleutian islands. In support of this they call our attention to the great difference between the northern and the