4 i8 SOILS. 



Mediterranean Sea, we find that, instead of the humid forest 

 country, it was in the arid but irrigable coast countries, such as 

 the vegas of Valencia, Alicante, Granada, Malaga, and the 

 even more arid domain of which Carthage was the metropolis ; 

 and farther east, in the Graeco-Syrian archipelago and the ad- 

 jacent coasts, that noted centers of civilization were developed 

 and maintained. Thence the arid belt requiring irrigation 

 extends from Egypt and Arabia to Palestine, Syria, Assyria, 

 Mesopotamia and Persia, and across the Indus through the 

 anciently recognized regions of Indian civilization Sindh, 

 the Panjab, Rajputana and the Northwestern provinces to 

 the Ganges, embracing such well-known centers as Lahore, 

 Delhi, Meerut, Agra, etc., inhabited by much more hardy and 

 progressive races than the humid and highly productive tropical 

 portions of the Indian peninsula. Throughout the extensive 

 and important portion of northern India, irrigation is neces- 

 sary to maintain regular production; and in default of it, 

 periodic famines ravage the country. Thousands of years ago, 

 millions upon millions of treasure were expended there upon 

 irrigation works, as has again been done in modern times; yet 

 in the rainy, forested districts we still find large areas prac- 

 tically tenanted by wild beasts. In Asia Minor, as well as in 

 Central Asia, the remains of ancient cities once surrounded by 

 richly productive irrigated fields, are found where at present 

 only the herds of nomads pasture. The Khanates of southern 

 Turkestan with their historic cities, illustrate the same obsti- 

 nate bias in favor of arid climates. Similarly, in the New 

 World, it was not in the moist and exuberantly fertile forest 

 lands of the Orinoco and Amazon, but on the arid western 

 slopes of the Andes, that the civilization of the Incas was de- 

 veloped. In Mexico, also, it was the high central, arid plateau, 

 not the bountifully productive ticrra calicnte, over which the 

 Aztecs chose to establish the main centers of their empire. 

 Even to northward, the inhabitants of the high, dry plains of 

 Arizona and New Mexico were, as their descendants of the 

 Pueblos are to-day, superior in social development to their 

 forest-dwelling neighbors of the Algonquin race. From time 

 immemorial they have practiced irrigation in connection with 

 cultivation, maintaining a comparatively dense population on 

 very limited areas. 



