THE EFFECTS OF GEOGRAPHIC ENVlROXMEyT 175 



drifted in until the valle}- becames a waste, rich only in mounds 

 and ruins of old em})ires. 



The geographic position of Mesopotamia made it for thousands 

 of 3'ears the great higlnvay of the world— connecting the east 

 and the west, Euroi)e and Asia. Over it great caravans were 

 constantly passing; but the carriage by canal was slow, expen- 

 sive, and finally became dangerous. 



Columbus, in his efforts to find a better way to the Orient, 

 discovered America. Magellan circumnavigated Africa and 

 opened a new route around the Cape of Cood Hope, which was 

 followed for nearly lour hundred years, when a shorter way was 

 o[)ened through the Suez canal and Ked sea; but the route 

 through Meso[)otamia must once again liecome the highway con- 

 necting the two continents, for it is now the route of the tele- 

 graph, and railroads are gradually finding their way from the 

 Mediterranean to the valley of the Eui)hrates, and down the 

 valley, as the shortest route and easiest road between the east 

 and west. When the Turkish rule is overthrown and a good 

 government established the population will increase, new cities 

 will arise, and this valley may once more become the garden 

 of the world. 



The civilization of the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates 

 traveled eastward into Persia and India, over the mountains into 

 China, and down its great rivers to the Pacific, across the desert 

 southward and up the Nile to the interior of Africa. From 

 Babylon it commenced its westward course, tarrying first at the 

 Mediterranean, where it exchanged the cuneiform writing of 

 Babylon for the Phoenician alphabet, founded Tyre and Sidon. 

 There it met a new environment, for the ocean added shipping 

 and commerce to the civilization of Babylon. 



The population of Mesopotamia, Tyre, and .Sidon and their 

 colonies was of the Sumarian or Semitic race. They liad mate- 

 rial wealth, the patriarchal or despotic rule, with little personal 

 freedom, and their work in advancing civilization, which they 

 had carried on for so many thousand years, finally came to an 

 end. Another country and a different race must carry forward 

 civilization and develop art, science, and literature. From Tyre 

 and Sidon and the Semitic race, civilization moved westward to 

 Greece, and there met the Aryan race, with different political 

 and personal training, its home amid lofty mountains, enclosing 

 rich valleys, with shores indented with deep gulfs and bays, 

 harbors studded with islands. Instead of one great desi)Otism, 



