846 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



is endless trouble from lack of moisture. 

 If the inhabitants tried to rely upon agri- 

 culture they would either starve in a few 

 years or be forced to abandon the coun- 

 try. Thus it appears that here, and also 

 in almost all other parts of Turkey where 

 nomadism is practiced, the people must 

 either depend upon flocks, and wander 

 from place to place, or must give up the 

 country entirely. Therefore it is not the 

 people who have nomadized the land, but 

 the land which has nomadized the people. 



In ancient days nomadism was not 

 necessary, because then the climate was 

 moister than now, so that the dry places 

 were damp enough for crops and the sa- 

 line places were in many cases kept fresh. 

 The proof of this is abundant. It con- 

 sists partly of the strands of old salt 

 lakes which are proved to have stood at 

 much higher levels in the past than in 

 the present, showing that they received 

 more water. 



Another line of evidence is found in 

 the location of old cities. Sir William 

 Ramsay, the greatest authority on the 

 geography of Asia Minor, says that in 

 ancient days the chief towns were located 

 where it was most convenient for trade 

 or for defense. In modern days, how- 

 ever, the locations have often been 

 changed, he says, to sites less convenient 

 than those of the past, but which have 

 the advantage of a larger water supply. 

 That is, great towns could formerly be 

 located almost anywhere, because every- 

 where there was enough water. Now, 

 towns, even of smaller size, cannot be 

 located except in places where there is 

 an exceptional amount of water. 



Another kind of evidence is found in 

 towns like Ak Viren, already mentioned. 

 Here the chief town of the region grew 

 up in a place that is now not only too 

 dry to support a large town, but abso- 

 lutely devoid of anything to support a 

 small town. Semi-nomads, Hke those of 

 the Axylon plain, could never build a fine 

 little city such as old Savatra. It could 

 have grown up only at a time when the 



plain was so well watered that good crops 

 could be grown everywhere. 



Scores of other facts point to the same 

 conclusion. The change • is not due to 

 the cutting off of forests, for it occurred 

 over a vast area, including Arabia, Syria^ 

 Persia, and Turkestan, as well as Asia 

 Minor, and in much of this region there 

 is no evidence that forests ever existed 

 during historic times. It has also oc- 

 curred in places where forests once ex- 

 isted but are now gone, and in places 

 where they have always existed and still 

 survive. Hence it is a general change, 

 affecting all of Asia from western China 

 to Asia Minor, and probably a far larger 

 area, extending eastward to the Pacific 

 Ocean and westward to the Atlantic. 



CLIMATIC CHANGES PAST AND PRE:SE:nT 



The change from the conditions of the 

 past to those of the present has not pro- 

 gressed uniformly. About 600 years 

 after Christ there was a period of a cen- 

 tury, more or less, when the climate was 

 even drier than now. When the change 

 took place from the previous moist con- 

 ditions to the great aridity of the seventh 

 century, hundreds of thousands and pos- 

 sibly millions of people in the drier parts 

 of Asia began to suffer from lack of 

 water for their crops and grass for their 

 cattle. Their families were hungry and 

 their children cried for bread. So the 

 fathers cast about for new places to 

 occupy, and began to move this way and 

 that in great hordes, taking with them 

 their wives, children, cattle, and house- 

 hold goods. 



Thus, apparently, arose the great mi- 

 grations which overwhelmed Europe in 

 the Dark Ages. It was hunger, due ta 

 drought, which made the early Moham- 

 medans so terrible a scourge. Hunger 

 drove them and religious fanaticism 

 united them. In the great changes of 

 this turbulent time the last vestiges of 

 the wealth of the land of Midas were 

 swept away, for no land can be rich i£ 

 its people suffer from hunger. 



