THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 



In the Nile valley the date palm was first cultivated, whiU' wlieat and 

 barley came probably from the Eui)lirates re<i;ion. Very ancient monu- 

 ments show gods adorned with grain and honored with the plow. The 

 native fauna included the buffalo, the wild ox, the ass, the sheep, ami 

 the goat, all domesticated in the earliest times and providing an un- 

 equaled basis for incipient civilization. 



These natural advantages allowed a dense population, but the danger 

 of invasion, especially from Elam, compelled the population, which from 

 the beginning had had to fight lions, leopards, and wild oxen, also to 

 fight their neighbors. This developed a uiore warlike race than inhabited 

 Egypt. Barbaric invasions also gave a more composite population, and 

 necessitated civil wars. From the beginning of history we find Baby- 

 lonia attacking Elam on the east and reaching, to the north and west, as 

 far as the INIediterranean. Before the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty 

 Egyptian influence had hardly entered Asia, while Babylonia ruled as 

 far as Cyprus, and it was Babylonian culture which controlled Asia Minor 

 and all the coast, created the Assyrian and Hittite people, and through 

 these and the Phoenician trade gave the chief impulse to Greek civiliza- 

 tion. 



March 15. Syria, by Rev. Dr. Thomas J. Shahan, of the Catholic 

 University of America. 



Syria: Its human interest ; from time immemorial a battlefield; the 

 scene of West Asiatic conquest and defeat. The empires of Egypt and 

 Africa. The Lombardy of the Orient. The forum of eastern and west- 

 ern civilizations. The converging point of far Eastern trade. Emporium 

 for other Mediterranean nations and the far West. The Phrenician era. 

 Tyre and Sidon. Colonies. The place of ancient Syria in letters, art, 

 and politics. 



Orographical formation : Rivers ; Table-lands ; The Great Steppe. Vege- 

 tation. 



Geological formation : Cretaceous limestone of the plateaux. Ba.saltic 

 peaks. Alluvial lands. Clay soils of the Steppe. 



Political geography: Pre-P]gyptian inhabitants. Egyptian conquest. 

 A subject state of Assyria, Babylonia, Persia. The inheritance of the 

 Greek generals of Alexander. Armenian and Parthian masters. Be- 

 comes part of the world-empire of Rome. Chief bazaar and art-museum 

 of the empire. The causes of its decline and early conquest by Arab 

 invaders. Islam and Syria. 



March 22. Tijre and Sidon, by Professor Tiiom.as Davidson-, M. A., of 

 Brooklyn, N. Y. 



The Phcenicians a branch of the Semites. The Semitic character and 

 form of social union. Religion. Devotion to industry and trade. The 

 extent of Semitic civilization. Homeric Greece and the civilization of 

 Agamemnon Semitic. 



The Semitic character as affected by surroundings; by the de.«ert 

 (Arabs); by the fertile land (Babylonians, etc.); by mountains and sea 

 (Phoenicians). Phoenicians unwarlike but enterprising. Nature of their 

 civilization, industry, and trade. 



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