eing stopped by the Senate of Carthage,
those who happened to be in the newly discovered countries, cut off
from all communication with their countrymen, and being destitute of
many of the necessaries of life, easily fell into a state of
barbarism.

George de Huron, a Dutch writer on this subject, considering the short
space of time which elapsed between the creation of the world and the
deluge, maintains that America could not have been peopled before the
flood. He likewise supposes that its first inhabitants were located in
the north; and that the primitive colonies extended themselves over
the whole extent of the continent, by means of the Isthmus of Panama.
It is his opinion that the first founders of these Indian colonies
were Scythians; that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians subsequently
got to America across the Atlantic, and the Chinese across the Pacific
ocean, and that other nations might have landed there by one of these
means, or been thrown on the coast by tempest: since through the whole
extent of the continent, both in its northern and southern parts there
are evident marks of a mixture of the northern nations with those who
have come from other places.

[15] He also supposes that another migration of the Phoenicians took
place during a three years voyage made by the Tyrian fleet in the
service of king Solomon. He asserts, on the authority of Josephus,
that the port at which this embarkation was made, lay in the
Mediterranean. The fleet, he adds, went in quest of Elephants' teeth
and Peacocks, to the western coast of Africa, which is Tarshish, then
for gold to Ophir, which is Haite or the Island of Hispaniola. In the
latter opinion he is supported by Columbus, who, when he discovered
that Island, thought he could trace the furnaces in which the gold had
been refined.

Monsieur Charlevoix, who travelled through North America, is of
opinion that it received its first inhabitants from Tartary and
Hyrcania. In support of this impression he says that some of the
animals which are to be found here, must have come from those
countries: a fact which would go to prove that the two hemispheres
join to the northward of Asia. And in order to strengthen this
conjecture, he relates the following story, which he says was told to
him by Father Grollon, a French Jesuit, as matter of fact.

Father Grollon said, that after having labored some time in the
missions of New France, he passed over to China. One day as he wa