210 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



not the less the same in substance, in both hemispheres, and in 

 the South Sea Islands. 



Although, in Central Asia, no very distinct evidence of a 

 general diluvian action, so late as to involve the fate of many 

 nations, can be detected, still there cannot be a doubt that, with 

 scarce an opposable circumstance, all Man's historical dogmatic 

 knowledge and traditionary records, all his acquirements, 

 inventions, and domestic possessions, point to that locality, as 

 connected with a great cataclysis, and as the scene where 

 human development took its first most evident distribution. 



The animals subdued for household purposes, by the earliest 

 nations, are found upon or around it in all directions, — like 

 the Dog, universally spread where Man resides ; and the Hog, 

 found radiating from points, where the wild species occur, from 

 south-east to north-west; the Horse, Ass, and Camel, in direc- 

 tions originally commencing from the west side; so, again, the 

 Ox, Sheep, and Goat, still existing wild in the form of more 

 than one species on the same borders ; whilst even the Ele- 

 phant walked once through the more southern woods ; and the 

 Wild Cat, similar to the European, now haunts the same, and 

 prowls far onwards m the north. Of birds, Gallinacea, all 

 originating in the south-east of Asia ; several kinds of poultry 

 are wild in the woods ; and one domesticated species, at least, 

 was carried, in Man's earliest migrations, onward to Egypt and 

 the west of Europe, as well as to the furthest islands in the 

 South Seas ; perhaps even to Chili, before the arrival of the 

 Spaniards. 



On the western side, at least, are found the parent plants of 

 many fruit-bearing trees and shrubs, now naturalized in Europe; 

 the walnut, chestnut, filbert; the apple, medlar, cherry, and 

 almost all the wild and cultivated berries, and the vine at no 

 great distance.^ Wheat and barley, of more than one variety 



* The vine is now cultivated about Llassa, in Thibet, 29° 40" north 

 latitude, and may also be indigenous. 



