THE EVOLUTION OF COMMERCE.* 
By GARDINER G. HUBBARD. 
For over three thousand years the great highway for commerce has 
been from India by the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates or by the Red 
Sea to the Mediterranean, and thence through the Mediterranean by 
Gibraltar to western and northern Europe, and in our day thence to 
America. 
Along this route cities and nations have sprung up, increased in 
wealth and power, and passed away, giving place to other cities and 
nations further westward. These nations have been great carriers and 
distributors of minerals and goods, as well as capitalists and bankers, 
or carriers, bankers, and manufacturers; in either case controlling the 
commerce of the world. This control has never for any long period 
been held by the same race, but has passed from one nation to another, 
always from the east toward the west. 
The earliest highway of commerce was from India through the Per- 
sian Gulf, up the Euphrates to the Mediterranean; and carpets and 
precious stones were then as now carried over this route. Explora- 
tions and surveys for a railroad have been recently made along this 
“our future highway to India.” Caravans brought spices from Arabia 
and rich stuffs from Babylon and Nineveh to the shore of the Red Sea. 
Solomon made a navy of ships and Hiram sent in the navy his 
“Servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, and they brought 
gold trom Ophir, great plenty of almug trees, and precious stones.” 
Tyre and Sidon founded colonies on the shores of the Mediterranean, 
ensiaving the Spaniards and compelling them to work the mines of 
gold and silver already opened in Spain. Their ships sailed through 
the Mediterranean, by the Pillars of Hercules, into the Atlantic Ocean, 
turning northward to England for tin and copper and on into the Bal- 
tic sea for furs and amber, turning southward along the western coast 
of Africa, passing certainly 2,000 miles to the equator, and probably 
rounding the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean. Products 
from the west were brought in ships to Tyre and Sidon and exchanged 
* Presidential address to the National Geographic Society, January 15, 1892, 
(From The National Geographic Magazine, March 26, 1892: vol. Iv, pp. 1-18). 
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