these people, any or all of them, to cross to the western shore of our continent by sea than by land. There is a great "river in the sea" called the Kuro Siwo, or Black Stream, similar to our Gulf Stream, that crosses the Pacific Ocean from Japan to our northwest coast, and sweeps southward along the western shores. By means of this ocean river, with its steady current, Japanese junks have been drifted across the Pacific to the coast of California. One writer, who has given the subject great attention, says that a drifting wreck would be carried eastward by the Kuro Siwo at the rate of ten miles a day. Cast upon our coast, the Japanese sailors may have exerted some influence upon the civilization of the Indians already there, but they could not have come in this way in sufficient numbers to people the country.
The Malays were bold navigators, and may have visited the west coast, but it is a question if any of them stayed.
Looking east, how would it be possible for any people to cross the wide expanse of ocean that Columbus first crossed in modern times? It would seem difficult, yet it does not seem so to those who believe that from this direction America first received her people.
Did you ever hear the story of Atlantis?
Atlantis was a great island that is said to have existed in the Atlantic ocean ages and ages ago. According to some ancient historians it was fertile and beautiful, with extensive forests and rivers, hills, mountains, valleys—in short, a good-sized continent. It was peopled by an intelligent and warlike race, who even invaded the neighboring coast of Africa and perhaps passed into Spain. Some Phœnecian navigators claimed to have sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules—the Strait of Gibraltar—and to have discovered it. It was claimed that this was more than an
