MATTHEW, CLIMATE AM) EVOLUTION 



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migration to the most remote parts of the earth. The great mountain 

 ranges to the south impeded migration in this direction, while to east and 

 northeast, west and northwest, migration was easy and rapid. Reaching 

 the New World by way of the Alaskan bridge, the long uninterrupted 

 chain of the Cordilleras facilitated migration along their flanks to the 

 farthest limits of South America. 



There is little evidence if any, in the New World, of any migrations of 

 inferior races long preceding those of the Amerind tribes, which would 

 seem to have branched off at a moderately high stage in the evolution of 

 mankind. Per contra, we find in South Africa, in Australia, in penin- 

 sular India and elsewhere, remnants of what must have been an early 

 cycle of migrations. Each group of this early cycle, derived primarily 

 from a difterent part of the central region of dispersal, has specialized 

 further in proportion to its isolation and yet retains a predominance of 

 the common primitive characters representing the stage of development 

 attained when it left the dispersal center. The populating of Africa by 

 the negroes may be regarded as the latest phase of this early cycle of dis- 

 persal, or should perhaps be considered independently. 



The later development of the race is conditioned by its splitting in the 

 region of dispersal into an eastern or Mongolian and a western or Cau- 

 casian stock. This split was presumably conditioned by the east-west 

 elongation of the dispersal center caused by the facility of expansion in 

 these directions and the mountain barriers to the south. All the east- 

 ward migrations from this time on bear a distinctly Mongolian stamp. 

 An early phase of this stage is represented by the population of the New 

 World and the variously mixed Malayan peoples. A later phase appears 

 in the more typical Mongolian races. All the westward migrations, on 

 the other hand, are of Caucasian affinities, this stock splitting, as the re- 

 gion of favorable environment widened out M^estward, into northeastern 

 or Nordic, southwestern or Mediterranean groups. The peoples of north- 

 ern Europe are derived from the successive migration waves of the first, 

 those of southern Europe and northeast Africa from the second; the in- 

 termediate Alpine stock of central Europe is considered to represent a 

 somewhat older migration allied to the Slavic peoples, who are to-day 

 the principal population of eastern Europe, the latest cycle of Caucasian 

 dispersal. 



I have gone into tliis brief recital of the migTation and dispersal his- 

 tory of mankind, not to present anything novel or authoritative, but be- 

 cause we have more evidence, direct and indirect, and more insight into 

 the conditions and causes which controlled its course, than with anv other 



