THE

HISTORY

OF

AMERICA.

BOOK I.

THE progress of men in discovering and BOOK

I.

peopling the various parts of the earth, has been extremely slow. Several ages elapsed The earth before they removed far from those mild and

fertile regions in which they were originally

placed by their Creator. The occasion of their first general dispersion is known; but we are unacquainted with the course of their migrations, or the time when they took possession of the different countries which they now inhabit. Neither history nor tradition furnish such information concerning those remote events, as enables us to trace, with any certainty, the operations of the human race in the infancy of society.

slowly

peopled.