THE REGION ABOUT THE MEDITEKEANEAN. 123 



first magnitude. Only in the southwestern portion of the continent is there 

 an ahiiost entire absence of hirge streams ; as is easily understood when the 

 peculiar position of this region with reference to the system of the trade- 

 w'inds, and the proximity of the continental mass of Africa, are taken into 

 consideration. And this region may properly be the fii'st to be taken ujd for 

 investigation as to its possibly changed condition during historic times, and 

 during the period immediately preceding them. 



From an examination of the facts it appears certain that the whole region 

 adjacent to the Mediteri'anean, both in Asia and Africa, — and, to a more 

 limited extent, in Europe, — has been, and still continues to be, the scene of 

 climatic changes, which have been more important than any taking place on 

 the earth's surface, in their effect on the well-being of the human race. 

 Here History goes back farthest with her records ; here remain authentic 

 monuments, of various kinds, testifying to facts which more or less directly 

 bear on the question before us, and justify us in believing that one of the 

 most prominent causes of social changes, and of the migration and decay 

 of races and peoples, in those countries, has been the constantly increasing 

 desiccation of the region in question — a region which embraces the area to 

 which the earliest real intellectual development of the human race was, so 

 far as history is concerned, almost exclusively confined. 



It appears to be an established fact, that the region extending from the 

 western extremity of the Himalayas, through the valleys of the Euphrates 

 and Tigris, Arabia, Palestine, Greece, Egypt, and tlie whole extent of the 

 southern shore of the Mediterranean, and, in a more limited degree, the 

 countries on the northern shore of that sea, have been inhabited by a very 

 much denser population than that which at present occupies them ; and it 

 also follows, almost as a matter of course, that, with this diminution of their 

 population, these countries have lost almost all the importance which they 

 once had. It is quite unnecessary, and it would be here out of place, to 

 do anything more than recall the well-known fact that the various nations 

 included within the area bordering on the Mediterranean have, at various 

 times in the past, either consecutively, or with more or less overlapping of 

 rising with declining nations, ruled the portion of the world which had the 

 best claims to be called civilized — and this both by force of arms and by 

 force of superior intellect. 



That no one of the nations inhabiting the region in question exercises, at 

 the pre.sent time, any dominating influence over the intellectual develop- 



