VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 803 



plains between the separated inland seas, as soon 

 as they were laid bare, threw open easy routes to 

 the Caucasus and to Turkestan, which might well 

 be utilised by the blond long-heads moving east- 

 ward through the plains, contemporaneously left 

 dry, south and east of the Ural chain. The same 

 process of desiccation, however, would render the 

 route from east central Asia westward as easily 

 practicable ; and, in the end, the Aryan stock 

 might easily be cut in two, as we now find it to 

 be, by the movement of the Mongoloid brunet 

 broad-heads to the west. 



Thus we arrive at what is practically Latham's 

 Sarmatian hypothesis if the term " Sarmatian " 

 is stretched a little, so as to include the higher 

 parts and a good deal of the northern slopes of 

 Europe between the Ural and the German Ocean ; 

 an immense area of country, at least as large as 

 that now included between the Black Sea, the 

 Atlantic, the Baltic, and the Mediterranean. 



If we imagine the blond long- head race to have 

 been spread over this area, while the primitive 

 Aryan language was in course of formation, its 

 north-western and its south-eastern tribes will 

 have been 1,500, or more, miles apart Thus, there 

 will have been ample scope for linguistic differ- 

 entiation ; and, as adjacent tribes were probably 

 influenced by the same causes, it is reasonable to 

 suppose that, at any given region of the periphery 

 the process of differentiation, whether brought 



