74 



Briuton.] • ^ [Apnl 19, 



one or two possible instances in southern Arabia,* no example 

 of a Hamitic dialect has been discovered in Asia ; and Bab}^- 

 lonian Semitic is as far from Galla as is ancient Arabic. 



Principally because they are said to have been blonds, Prof. 

 Sayce claims the Amorites as Lib^'ans. But there are blonds 

 in considerable numbers among the pure-blooded Arabs of the des- 

 ert. Therefore this trait is not conclusive. Moreover, some of 

 the ablest critics now believe that " Amorite " and " Canaanite " 

 were merely ethnically synonymous terms applied to the same 

 Semitic people.f At any rate, the Amorites, if non-Semitic, 

 are much more likely to have been allied to the tribes north of 

 them than to the African Libyans. 



3. An Alleged '■'•Turanian'''' (Sibiric or Sinitic) Race. 



A favorite theory with many writers, notably Lenormant, 

 Sayce, Conder, Isaac Taylor, etc., has been that the '' Turanians " 

 extended over western Asia and central and southern Europe in 

 prehistoric times.;}; 



Who these Turanians were is not alwaj's clear. Prof. Sayce 

 sometimes calls them " Ugro-Altaic," at others, " Ugro-Mongo- 

 lian," by the former meaning collaterals of the Finns, Tartars 

 and Turks (those whom I call Sibiric), § and hy the latter appar- 

 ently including the Chinese. 



Apart from the alleged evidence from linguistic data, which 

 I shall consider later, scarcely anything save assertions have 

 been offered in favor of this opinion. Before the historic 

 invasions of western Asia by the Sibiric tribes, tliere is no rec- 

 ord of their presence in Persia or west of it. There are no 

 remnants of a prehistoric occupation by them, no existing frag- 

 ments of a primitive Sibiric tongue. The only groups of Mon- 

 gols now in the limits of ancient Iran, to wit., the Hasarah and 



♦Notably the Ekhili or Mahri in the Hadramaut. See M. de Charency's study of this 

 dialect in Actes de la Socictt Philologique, T. i, p. 31, sqq. Dr. Glaser has recently obtained 

 more material, but this has not yet been published. 



+ The question is impartially stated in J. F. McCurdy, History, Prophecy and the Monu- 

 ments, Vol. i, pp. 406-10? (New York, 1894). Dr. W. Max Miiller assigns strong reasons 

 for considering the Amorites to have been pure Semites, Asien und Eiiropa, pp. 2S0-234. 



I The evidence in favor of this theory is luUy summed up by C. K. Conder in his arti- 

 cle, " The Early Races of Western Asia," in the Jour, of the Anthropological Institute, 1890, 

 p. 304, sq., and in his Syrian Stone Lore (London, 1886). 



§See the clasaification of the Asian race whi(;h I adopt in my Races and Peoples; Lec- 

 tures on the Science of Ethnography, p. 191 (New York, 1892). 



