THE LINK RELATIONS OF SOUTH- 

 WESTERN ASIA' 



By Talcott Williams, LL. D. 



WHATEVER test, therefore, 

 we adopt, whether we reo^ard 

 the differences of precipita- 

 tion, weather, or plants, whether we 

 trace the distribution of species or the 

 wanderings of the human race — only a 

 degree less unconsciously flowing in the 

 channels made by the invisible walls 

 of temperature, rain, elevation, and 

 their joint product in the vegetable and 

 animal world— we reach at last in man 

 the same distribution of life more highly 

 organized in urban conditions on the east 

 and west, with a narrow linked region 

 connecting them, between vast northern 

 and southern spaces. In these the rigor 

 or the vigor of climate and the perpetual 

 conflict of continental areas develop sin- 

 gle, dominant, destructive, or exclusive 

 t3'pes, as the ocean spaces the shark, 

 once absent from seas like the Mediter- 

 ranean. The effect of this on warfare in 

 northern Asia is perhaps best illustrated 

 by the differing arrow release to which 

 that observant and ingenious ethnolo- 

 gist. Prof. E. S. Morse, long since drew 

 attention. As we pass from the simple 

 primary thumb and forefinger release 

 of the savage to the three-finger release 

 of the Mediterranean races and on to 

 the thumb ring of the Mongolian arrow 

 release, we are passing through a suc- 

 cessive development in missile weapons, 

 of which the last represents the strong- 

 est and shortest bow and the weightier 

 missile — the highest development which 

 this weapon has reached on horseback. 

 Joined to the habit of concerted action 

 and the capacity for wide rule which 

 the plains races always develop, whether 

 they be the Arab of the Southern plains. 



the Turk or Tatar of the Northern 

 plains, or even the Teuton of that brief 

 analogue of the Riverine plains of Asia, 

 which lies just north of the mountain 

 masses of Europe, there exists, both in 

 warfare and in predatory organization, 

 an overmastering advantage in the races 

 to the north and the races to the south. 

 ■ If we ask why these riders have not 

 ridden down the world about and broken 

 this link between the development of 

 the East and the West, it is because the 

 bridge is protected by the dike created 

 by the elevations extending from the 

 center uplifts of Asia and Europe, as 

 Professor Suess has shown perhaps more 

 clearly than any other physiographer. 

 When the mountain ranges are reduced 

 as they are in his diagrammatic map to 

 elementary conditions, it is at once ap- 

 parent that a continuous chain runs from 

 the Pamir Dagh to the end. There the 

 curving Carpathian line loses itself in 

 the Noric Alps at the point where the 

 Danube breaks through and the Celtic 

 huts of Vindobona have been replaced by 

 the roofs and towers of Vienna. To 

 the south this linked region is differ- 

 ently separated. The Pusht-i-Kuh and 

 its continuing ranges, which for five 

 millennia have separated Semitic and 

 Iranic realms, lie to the north of the 

 Euphrates River Valley, and nearly join 

 the Armenian Taurus, which closes off 

 Asia Minor. As a result, while the 

 Arabian Patesi broke into this linked 

 region in the fourth millennium before 

 Christ, the Turkish Bey had not made 

 his appearance south of the northern 

 more defined dike until the close of the 

 first millennium of our area, unless in- 



* Concluded from the July number. 



