170 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



turn), which has come into the hands of man ; as we speak 

 of tame animals in opposition to wild ones." (Jacob Grimm, 

 Gesch. der deutschen Sprache, 1848, Th. i. S. 62.) It is 

 certainly a very striking phenomenon, to find on one side of 

 our planet nations to whom flour or meal from small-eared 

 grasses (Hordeacese and Avenacese), and the use of milk, 

 were completely unknown, while the nations of almost all 

 parts of the other hemisphere cultivate the Cerealia, and 

 rear milk-yielding animals. The cultivation of different 

 kinds of grasses may be said to afford a characteristic dis- 

 tinction between the two parts of the world. In the New 

 Continent, from 52 north to 46 south latitude, we see 

 only one species cultivated, viz. maize. In the Old Conti- 

 nent, on the other hand, we find every where, from the 

 earliest times of history, the fruits of Ceres, wheat, barley, 

 spelt or red wheat, and oats. That wheat grew wild in the 

 Leontine fields, as well as in several other places in Sicily, 

 was a belief entertained by ancient nations, and is mentioned 

 by Diodorus Siculus. (Lib. v. p. 199 and 232, Wessel.) 

 Ceres was found in the alpine meadow of Enna ; and Dio- 

 dorus fables that "the inhabitants of the Atlantis were 

 unacquainted with the fruits of Ceres, because they had 

 separated from the rest of mankind before those fruits had 

 been shewn to mortals." Sprengel has collected several 

 interesting passages which lead him to think it probable that 

 the greater part of our European kinds of grain were 

 originally wild in the northern parts of Persia and India, 

 namely, summer wheat in the country of the Musicanes, a pro- 

 vince in Northern India (Strabo, xv. 1017) ; barley (" anti- 



