170 THE EFFECTS Ot GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENT 



development was higher and their weapons were better, they 

 easily overpowered the Europeans and mingling with them 

 formed a new people or race. The Bronze Age was thus intro- 

 duced into Europe, not as a progression from one stage to 

 another, but by the invasion of a superior civilization. The im- 

 migrants drove their flocks and herds with them, for in the 

 Bronze Age the larger proportion of the bones are those of 

 domestic animals, while in the earl}'' Stone Age no bones of 

 domestic animals are found, and very few in the later Stone 

 Age. The inhabitants of Europe slowly passedfrom the Bronze 

 to the Iron Age, from savagery to barbarism, and there progress 

 ceased. How long this stagnation continued we cannot tell — 

 possibly many thousands of years. The population of hunters 

 and fishermen were satisfied and contented with their lot. 



We have traced, in Equatorial Africa, in the Arctic regions, 

 and in Europe the slow development of man, so far only as for- 

 ced by his geographical environment. It is to the east that we 

 must look for those conditions, which raised man through suc- 

 cessive stages of savagery and barbarism to the highest civiliza- 

 tion the world has ever known. In Egypt we find a people iso- 

 lated on the north by the Mediterranean, on the east and west 

 by the Desert, and on the south by the Cataracts, and thus pro- 

 tected for long ages from any foreign enemy. Their surround- 

 ings largely influenced the religion of the people. The desert 

 which forever encroached on them was to them the type of death, 

 while the Nile, their greatest blessing, to which they owed all the 

 fertility of their valley, represented life. The sun and moon, in 

 all their various phases, were deified and "worshiped, as were the 

 sky and wind. Every mysterious natural phenomenon which 

 influenced their daily lives became an object of worship. 



More wonderful than the Nile is the valley of Mesopotamia. 

 It is about 1,200 miles in length, extending from the Persian 

 gulf almost to the Mediterranean. A long range of mountains 

 runs along the northern side ; the boundless desert, on the other, 

 stretches across Arabia and over the Red sea, through Africa to 

 the Atlantic ocean. Through this valley flow the Euphrates and 

 Tigris in nearly parallel lines, uniting shortly before they reach 

 the Persian gulf The fauna and flora of this valley are very 

 rich and abundant; wheat and millet grow spontaneously. "So 

 great was the fertility of the soil, according to Herodotus, grain 

 commonly returned two hundred fold to the sower, and occa- 

 sionally three hundred fold, while wheat, barle}^ sesame, ochrys, 



