216 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



stances to be propagated continuously. It would 

 seem also to apply to the introduction of forms 

 regarded as species, since it is not unusual to find a 

 genus at or near its origin represented by its 

 maximum number of specific forms. 



7. The precise locality of the origin of man can 

 be defined on probable grounds as in a temperate 

 region, supplied with the vegetable productions most 

 useful to him in a natural state, and free from destruc- 

 tive animal rivals. We can scarcely suppose that 

 this locality can have been in any of those parts of 

 the world in which man finds the greatest difficulty 

 in subsisting, or becomes most degraded, though this 

 paradoxical view has been held by some archaeolo- 

 gists. It must rather have been in some fertile and 

 salubrious region of the northern hemisphere ; and 

 probability as well as tradition points to those regions 

 in South-Western Asia which have not only been the 

 earliest historical abodes of man, but are also the 

 centres of the animals and plants most useful to him. 

 It is interesting to note here that Haeckel, on purely 

 physical grounds, decides against Europe, Africa, 

 Australia, and America, and concludes that 'most 

 circumstances indicate Southern Asia.' 



8. It is to be observed, however, that the diluvial 

 interlude gives a double origin of man ; but the 

 historical accounts of the neocosmic dispersion, as 

 we have already seen, refer us in this case also to the 

 same regions of South-Western Asia. The traditions 

 which ascribe human origin to a ' Mountain of the 



