METHODS FOR PEOVING OBIQIN OF SPECIES. 19 



century, -when the Chinese character was introduced 

 into Japan^^ 



The vast region which stretches from the Ganges to 

 Armenia and the Nile was not in ancient times so 

 isolated as China. Its inhabitants exchanged cultivated 

 plants "virith gi-eat facility, and even transported them 

 to a distance. It is enough to remember that ancient 

 migrations and conquests continually intermixed the 

 Turanian, Aryan, and Semitic peoples between the 

 Caspian Sea, Mesopotamia, and ^he Nile. Great states 

 were formed nearly at the same time on the banks of 

 the Euphrates d,nd in Egypt, but they succeeded to 

 tribes which had already cultivated certain plants. Agri- 

 culture is older in that region than Babylon and the first 

 Egyptian dynasties, which date from more than four 

 thousand years ago. The Assyrian and Egyptian em- 

 pii-es afterwards fought for supremacy, and in their 

 struggles they transported whole nations, which could 

 not fail to spread cultivated species. On the other hand, 

 the Aryan tribes who dwelt originally to the north of 

 Mesopotamia, in a land less favourable to agriculture, 

 sjM"ead westward and southward, driving out or subju- 

 gating the Turanian and Dravidiannations. Their speech, 

 and those which are derived from it in Europe and Hin- 

 dustan, show that they knew aind transported several 

 useful species.^ After these ancient 'events, of which the 

 dates are for the most part uncertain, the voyages of the 

 Phoenicians, the wars between the Greeks and Persians, 

 Alexander's expedition into India, and finally the Roman 

 rule, completed the spread of cultivation in the interior 

 of Western Asia, and even introduced it into Europe and 

 the north of Africa, wherever the climate permitted. 



Later, at the time of the crusades, very few useful 

 plants yet remained to be brought from the East. A 



' Atsuma-gwa. Eecueil pour servir d la connaissance de I'extrSme 

 Orient, Tnrretini, toI. vi., pp. 200, 293. 



* There are in the French language two excellent works, which give 

 the Bum of modern knowledge with regard to the East and Egypt. Tbe 

 one is the Manuel de I'Bistoire Ancienne de I'Orient, by Fran9oi8 Lenor. 

 mand, 3 vols, in 12mo, Paris, 1869 ; the other, L'Histoire Ancienne des 

 Fewplea de I'Orieni, by Maspero, 1 vol. in 8vo, Paris, 1878. 



