reached the Pacific coast within the Historical Period, and that they came to it from the direction of the Mediterranean and Atlantis, and when we find so many and such distinct recollections of the destruction of Atlantis in the Flood legends of the American races, it seems more reasonable to conclude that the resemblances between the Othomi and the Chinese are to be accounted for by intercourse through Atlantis.
We find a confirmation in all these facts of the order in which Genesis names the sons of Noah:
"Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and unto them were sons born after the flood."
Can we not suppose that these three sons represent three great races in the order of their precedence?
The record of Genesis claims that the Phœnicians were descended from Ham, while the Hebrews were descended from Shem; yet we find the Hebrews and Phœnicians united by the ties of a common language, common traditions, and common race characteristics. The Jews are the great merchants of the world eighteen centuries after Christ, just as the Phœnicians were the great merchants of the world fifteen centuries before Christ.
Moreover, the Arabians, who are popularly classed as Semites, or sons of Shem, admit in their traditions that they are descended from "Ad, the son of Ham;" and the tenth chapter of Genesis classes them among the descendants of Ham, calling them Seba, Havilah, Raamah, etc. If the two great so-called Semitic stocks—the Phœnicians and Arabians—are Hamites, surely the third member of the group belongs to the same "sunburnt" race.
If we concede that the Jews were also a branch of the Hamitic stock, then we have, firstly, a Semitic stock, the Turanian, embracing the Etruscans, the Finns, the Tartars, the Mongols, the Chinese, and Japanese; secondly, a Hamitic family,
