THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE 723 



procured at all seasons of the year. In ancient 

 Europe, after the present climatal conditions were 

 established, it is doubtful if a family of children 

 under ten years of age could have lived through 

 a single winter. We are not, therefore, surprised 

 to find that no more than four or five linguistic 

 stocks are represented in Europe. Of North 

 America, east of the Rocky Mountains and north 

 of the tropics, the same may be said. The climate 

 and the scarcity of food in winter forbid us to 

 suppose that a brood of orphan children could have 

 survived, except possibly, by a fortunate chance, 

 in some favoured spot on the shore of the Mexican 

 Gulf, where shell-fish, berries, and edible roots are 

 abundant and easy of access. But there is one 

 region where Nature seems to offer herself as the 

 willing nurse and bountiful stepmother of the 

 feeble and unprotected. Of all countries on the 

 globe, there is probably not one in which a little 

 flock of very young children would find the means 

 of sustaining existence more readily than in Cali- 

 fornia. Its wonderful climate, mild and equable 

 beyond example, is well known. Half the months 

 are rainless. Snow and ice are almost strangers. 

 There are fully two hundred cloudless days in 

 every year. Roses bloom in the open air through 

 all seasons. Berries of many sorts are indigenous 



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