HOLMES DISTRIBUTION OF THE HUMAN RACE. I9 



Dards ; but they are somewhat lighter than the Dogras, who 

 occupy the foot-hills at an elevation of 3,000 feet above the sea, 

 in latitude 32° to 33i°N., and are described as of a comparatively 

 light shade of brown, darker than the almond husk, which is the 

 color of the women, who are less exposed to the sun and weather. 

 They have a good countenance and a hooked nose. Still darker 

 shades are found among the high caste Brahmans of the lower 

 plains. The Aryan peoples, who still inhabit the high valleys 

 and slopes of the i;orthern declivities of the Himalayan ranges, in 

 Kashgar, at an elevation of six to nine thousand feet, and in the 

 high valleys of the Oxus and Jaxartes, and thence westwardly 

 into Persia, are described as white peoples more or less fair. It 

 is scarcely possible to resist the conclusion that we have here a 

 demonstration of the efiect of elevation and climate on color, in 

 the course of long periods of time. 



The Aryans have generally been regarded as indigenous to 

 central Asia ; but the Semitic peoples have been supposed to be 

 indigenous to the areas in which history has found them. But 

 recent researches indicate that they descended into the valley of 

 the Euphrates from the direction of the Armenian Mountains, or 

 possibly from the direction of Susa and Persepolis, and intruded 

 upon older populations (first) of the brown race in lower Baby- 

 lonia, and (second) of the Turanian stock from northern Asia. 

 They would seem to have moved westwardly, like the later Aryan 

 streams, between the brown race on the south and the Turanian 

 streams on the north ; and they are properly to be considered as 

 a very primitive branch of the white Caucasian stock. Their 

 antiquity is so great that it is still a question among philologists 

 whether their language was a primitive ofishoot from the origi- 

 nal Aryan stem, or whether it may not go back (like the Aryan 

 speech itself) to some common monosyllabism, or word lan- 

 guage, similar to the Chinese. However this may be, certain it 

 is that all the Aryan-speaking peoples, as far back as historical or 

 philological research has gone, are found streaming westwardly 

 in successive waves from the fertile regions of high Central Asia, 

 Iranian, Assyrian, Pelasgian, Celt, Teuton, and Sclave, overlap- 

 ping and mixing with the brown and reddish-brown races along 

 the southern line of contact with them, from the mouths of the 

 Indus and of the Euphrates into Arabia, northern Africa, and 



