Introduction 



brought to light have been found in Java; in the Sussex 

 county of southern England; in France, Spain, southern 

 Germany, and Austria. From a variety of other suggestions 

 we may consider the most likely birthplace of man to have 

 been not any part of Africa and certainly no part of America ; 

 but some region of western Asia not far from the mythical 

 " Garden of Eden," midway in distance from the Java 

 to which Pithecanthropos strayed, and Sussex, whither 

 Eoanthropos penetrated before the Ice Ages developed both 

 the hideous man of Neanderthal and the modern species of 

 Homo sapiens. 



Arabia, which should serve as a connecting link in the 

 story of the mammalian and human peopling of Africa, has 

 been many times blighted and scarred by the stupidly con- 

 ducted forces clumsily controlling this little planet. Seem- 

 ingly this peninsula is the remains of a vast region formerly 

 extending farther into the Indian Ocean, which connected East 

 Africa with Persia, India, and Malaysia ; and southern India 

 in the first half of the Tertiary epoch was more or less con- 

 nected with Madagascar. But first, at the close of the Terti- 

 aries, a terrific outburst of volcanic energy covered a great 

 deal of the Arabian area with an impenetrable, all concealing 

 lava flow (hiding from our knowledge the fossils in its rocks). 

 And next came the abstraction of its rainfall and the creation 

 of its shifting and concealing sands. And lastly arose the 

 Islamic " faith," a cruel parody of Judaism and Christianity, 

 the worst form of knowledge-destroying religion that man 

 has yet invented. Islamic fanaticism has abstracted Southern 

 Arabia from the examination of educated eyes. 



Nevertheless, though Arabia, through climatic and human 

 recalcitrancy has been reduced to a negation, we must assume 



xxviii 



