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ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



and sparsely inhabited, are the remains of civilizations perhaps more 

 ancient than any of which we have record. Immediately around its bor- 

 ders lie the regions of the earliest recorded civilizations, — of Chaldea, Asia 

 Minor and Egypt to the westward, of India to the south, of China to the 

 east. From this region came the successive invasions which overflowed 

 Eun)])o in prehistoric, classical and mediiEval times, each tribe pressing 

 on the borders of those beyond it and in its turn being pressed on from 



Fig. 6. — Dispersal and distribution of the princiixil raroi of imin 

 No attempt Is made to indicate anything beyond the broader lines of dispersal. 



behind. The whole history of India is similar, — of successive invasions 

 pouring down from the nortli. In the Chinese Empire, the invasions 

 come from the west. In North Aniei'lra. the course of migration was 

 from Alaska, spreading fan-wise to the south and southeast and continu- 

 ing: dowTi alonof the flanks of the Cordilleras to the farthest extremitv of 

 South America. Owing to the facilities for southward migration af- 

 forded by the great Cordilleran ranges, the most remote parts of the New 

 World are the forests of Brazil and of northeast South America. In the 

 northern continent, Florida is the most distant from the source of mi- 

 gration. 



