across one or the other of the oceans. It must be admitted
that, even if we supposed the form and extent of the
continents to have been always the same as they are now,
such a migration would have been entirely possible. It
is quite likely that under the influence of exceptional
weather--winds blowing week after week from the same
point of the compass--even a primitive craft of prehistoric
times might have been driven across the Atlantic or the
Pacific, and might have landed its occupants still alive
and well on the shores of America. To prove this we need
only remember that history records many such voyages. It
has often happened that Japanese junks have been blown
clear across the Pacific. In 1833 a ship of this sort
was driven in a great storm from Japan to the shores of
the Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of British
Columbia. In the same way a fishing smack from Formosa,
which lies off the east coast of China, was once carried
in safety across the ocean to the Sandwich Islands.
Similar long voyages have been made by the natives of
the South Seas against their will, under the influence
of strong and continuous winds, and in craft no better
than their open canoes. Captain Beechey of the Royal Navy
relates that in one of his voyages in the Pacific he
picked up a canoe filled with natives from Tahiti who
had been driven by a gale of westerly wind six hundred
miles from their own island. It has happened, too, from
time to time, since the discovery of America, that ships
have been forcibly carried all the way across the Atlantic.
A glance at the map of the world shows us that the eastern
coast of Brazil juts out into the South Atlantic so far