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The National Geographic Magazine 



are to be found in the valleys of Morocco 

 and Baluchistan, of Afghanistan and 

 the Iberian peninsula. Over this entire 

 region closely similar deciduous trees 

 and annuals almost as similar flourish. 

 Over them, consequently, the same agri- 

 culture is possible. As will be seen, in 

 Supan's distribution of floral kingdoms, 

 this floral region which abuts to the 

 north in Kurope on the flora of the 

 great forest, of which so few remnants 

 are left, between the North Sea and 

 the Sea of Okhotsk, which touches on 

 the east upon the flora of inner Asia, 

 and which is flanked to the south by 

 the typical flora of Africa, Madagascar, 

 and India — at so many points furnishing 

 the proof of an earlier connection — con- 

 stitutes a connecting link in limitations 

 of precipitation, climate, and vegeta- 

 tion which permit substantially similar 

 human culture and ideals to exist over 

 the entire area. Substantially within 

 these limits were felt the influences of 

 the earlier empires from the fourth to the 

 first millennium before Christ. Within 

 them swayed the refluent tides of the suc- 

 cessive empires in the first millennium 

 before and the first millennium after 

 Christ, beginning with the Persian ex- 

 pansion and ending with that of Islam. 

 This region, therefore, in which nearly 

 all Eurasian fruits and so large a share 

 of the food plants of civilization were 

 first cultivated, in this respect is again 

 seen to be a connecting link between 

 the rice and wheat civilizations of Asia 

 and the wheat civilizations of Europe. 



SOUTHWESTERN ASIA AS A DIKE 



If we now collate these facts with 

 reference to elevations and return again 

 to the distribution of levels with which 

 we began, it becomes plain that what 

 we are really considering in these vary- 

 ing conditions is the fact that the Great 

 Uplift is really, in the region which we 

 are discussing, a narrow dike of moun- 

 tains between the comparatively flat 



lands which extend from Arabia to the 

 Atlantic, which we know as the Saharan 

 region, and the other great flat area 

 which abuts on the northern edge of 

 the inclosed region we have already 

 mentioned, and extends from the west- 

 ern boundary of Russia to eastern Sibe- 

 ria. This strip, which one might 

 almost term, borrowing a physiological 

 analogy, connective tissue between the . 

 developed regions in India and China 

 and those of Europe, is in the last analy- 

 sis a sort of mountain rampart which 

 separates the flat lands of central Asia, 

 with one definite type, from the flat 

 lands of Africa and Arabia, with another 

 type as definite. This rampart is also 

 so situated with reference to atmos- 

 pheric currents that it carries along the 

 conditions, so far as human life is con- 

 cerned, which exist along the northern 

 edge of the Mediterranean. 



RACIAL DISTRIBUTION 



The effect of this upon human life first 

 appears in race. The races of men are in 

 general terms distributed in the eastern 

 hemisphere in three great masses : the 

 yellow race occupies eastern Asia, hold- 

 ing the region which has already been 

 clearly indicated as the flat lands of 

 northern Asia, its central uplift, and its 

 eastern coast ; the white race in its 

 various forms extends from India, 

 connected by the tract we are consid- 

 ering with white expansion in Europe, . 

 Arabia, and North Africa, and the 

 black race holds two-thirds of the Afri- 

 can continent. This general distribu- 

 tion sufliciently indicates the fashion 

 in which southwestern Asia has given 

 the bridge, whatever theory we adopt as 

 to the origin of the Aryan race, either 

 that the race left India and spread- 

 over Europe and the Mediterranean 

 basin, or starting in Europe has found 

 its way into India, occupying that 

 peninsula until it reached in Indo-Asia 

 and the inner inclosed basin of the con- 



