CHAPTER RY 
ANCIENT. EGYPT, ASIA MINOR; 
AND) COREE. 
We have now reached that point in our story where the 
keeping of written records begins. Heretofore, the lack 
of these has made it impossible to speak of definite coun- 
tries or peoples, but at the most only of races and regions 
and general developments of culture. 
The effects of the Ice Age did not stop at those regions 
actually encroached upon by the vastly expanded glaciers 
and ice fields. The influence of the latter upon climatic 
conditions extended far beyond their borders. Because of 
them the “‘storm belt” of rain-bearing winds now blowing 
off the Atlantic over Europe was then deflected far to the 
south, so that it blew across what is now the rainless 
Desert of Sahara. Future research will doubtless disclose 
the connection which must have existed between the glacial 
or interglacial stages of the European Ice Age and the 
“pluvial periods” which seem to have occurred during the 
same epoch in Africa. Be that as it may, we know that the 
Sahara, now largely a burning waste of gravel and sand, 
once formed a pleasant, well-watered region, with abun- 
dant rain, streams, grass, and trees. Teeming with wild 
beasts of all sorts, it presented a hunters’ paradise to the 
men of the Old Stone Age, who have left their tools and 
weapons scattered about over its surface. But as the 
climate grew slowly drier, this abundant human and animal 
life died out or moved away in quest of water. They mi- 
grated, among other places, to the valley of the Nile, des- 
tined in far later times to be the home of a wonderful 
civilization. 
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