Vol. XII, No. 7 



WASHINGTON 



July, 1901 



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THE LINK RELATIONS OF SOUTH- 

 WESTERN ASIA* 



By Talcott Williams, LL. D. 



IN history a vast literature exists on 

 southwestern Asia, the one region 

 of the world's surface whose writ- 

 ten record is oldest, most continuous, 

 and most full. The physical features of 

 the region have had a discussion less 

 full, but almost as long. In southwest- 

 ern Asia the arc of the celestial sphere 

 was first applied to the measurement of 

 the earth' s surface. There first the sign, 

 the hour, the degree, the minute, and 

 the second were devised. There the 

 earliest maps were made. There the first 

 geographical record was inscribed. Our 

 entire knowledge of the earlier distribu- 

 ^tion of man upon the earth and of the 

 condition in which he found its earlier 

 physical features, when his conscious life 

 first woke to their impression, influence, 

 and effect, rests upon the records of clay, 

 in stone, and on papyrus of the river 

 valleys of southwestern Asia and its 

 linked regions. I propose, however, to 

 consider alone neither the history nor 

 the physical conditions of this tract, but 

 to endeavor to show the interrelation 

 between the two, the causes which have 

 made this part of the earth' s surface pro- 



lific in history, the guiding principle 

 which in every age has determined the 

 course of these annals, and the fashion in 

 which in our own time a problem which 

 began at the very dawn of human annals 

 is receiving its final solution. 



THE ASIAN COAST-LINE 



In dealing with any continent it is well 

 for us to orient ourselves by considering 

 in their simplest relation its area and 

 coast-line. If the area of each of the 

 continents be represented by a circle 

 which gives its relative extent contained 

 in the smallest possible form, and out- 

 side of this we draw another circle, giv- 

 ing the length of the sides of its ex- 

 tremely irregular reentrant polj'gon,^ we 

 have presented to us graphically the rel- 

 ative access which the continents enjoy 

 from the sea — an access which consti- 

 tutes the great source of perturbing in- 

 fluence, so far as the inhabitants of each 

 continent are concerned. If this ratio 



' Development of Continental Coast Lines 

 Relative to Area, Geog. Univ., Reclus, E., 

 Europe. 



* A lecture delivered before the National Geographic Society March 5, 1901. 



