THE ORIENTAL MIGRATION. 275 



Sea and the Tianshan Mountains, but it seems 

 certain that a considerable extent of dry land 

 enabled a wanderer from Central or Southern Asia 

 to reach the Balkan peninsula by skirting the 

 northern shore of that large miocene sea. No 

 miocene deposits occur north of Teheran or of the 

 Upper Euphrates, nor are they known from the 

 islands of the ^Egean Sea or the lands surrounding it. 

 From the Balkan peninsula it was possible for our 

 migrant to reach the European Alps, which were 

 then slowly rising as a peninsula out of the western 

 portion of the great miocene sea. What are now 

 the Alps was then hilly ground, which was being 

 raised from the bottom of the sea. It was no doubt 

 connected with the Balkan peninsula, so that an 

 intercourse of species could take place between this 

 newly-formed peninsula and Central Asia. I say 

 peninsula, because the miocene sea almost completely 

 surrounded it. From the Western Mediterranean a 

 wide gulf extended up the Rhone valley into that of 

 the Rhine as far north as Maintz. Then skirting along 

 the northern outliers of the Tyrol, the gulf can be 

 followed as far east as Transylvania. It is quite 

 probable that it extended much farther east still, but 

 there is as yet no geological evidence forthcoming. 

 At any rate, our Asiatic migrant turning northward 

 from the Balkan peninsula found its farther progress 

 barred once more by an arm of the same sea which in 

 its earlier peregrinations had stopped it from going 

 south (cf. Suess, i., p. 406). 



