TAYLOR : DOMINANCY IN NATURE. 
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7 
occupy the countries immediately adjacent thereto, but are more or 
less thoroughly permeated by the expanding Teutonic element, and 
these various peoples of common origin have adhered more closely to 
their primitive type of language than the Teutons, who have departed 
to a greater extent from the primitive or archaic Low German language 
which is now chiefly spoken on the Frisian Islands and in certain Dutch 
districts on the outer fringe of the Teutonic region. 
Eastward we meet with this gradually diminishing dominance, and 
although it has been suggested that at some previous epoch the high- 
lands of Central Asia were of a much more moderate elevation than 
at the present day and that the climate was milder than now, yet the 
region by its geographical position must always have possessed an 
extreme continental and dry climate and at the present time we find 
there a fauna which has been compared with the Central European 
life of the Tertiary period. 
On the West we have a more gradual but still quite perceptible 
waning of ascendancy, and this is clearly shown also in the celebrated 
thesis by Prof. Forbes in which the geographical position occupied by 
his Germanic, Kentish, Galilean, and Lusitanian areas in relation to 
North-Central Europe are in exact correspondence with the chrono- 
logical order he assigns to them, the Lusitanian being the most 
^ancient group and now furthest removed from the active evolu- 
tionary centre, while the Germanic is the most advanced and dominant 
and consequently the most modern group and therefore still occupies 
the area of highest evolutionary activity and dominating power ; the 
Kentish and the Galilean groups of species occupy an intermediate 
position geographically and chronologically ; while in the Eastern 
United States we have certain sections of its fauna and flora com- 
parable with those of the most primitive countries of the world, and 
immeasurably inferior to the life of Europe. 
To the South lies the Mediterranean region and Africa, separated 
from the vigorous northern races by lofty and almost inaccessible 
mountain ranges. South of the dividing mountains we find repre- 
sentatives of groups long ago compelled to leave the central region : 
some of them with an origin so remote that no close affinities can be 
traced with any living groups, and there is generally a deterioration 
of vigour, and many relics of ancient and even Tertiary life are still 
existent there, and this applies not only to snails and worms, but 
to plants, and doubtless to many other forms of life. 
The African region, south of the Sahara, is indeed primitive, and 
has long been a sanctuary for many strange, curious, and ancient 
forms derived from Europe during the Mesozoic period and in repeat- 
ing this 1 do not overlook Prof. Osborn's opinion that Africa has been 
a great centre of independent evolution. 
In the North we have the same reduction of dominating power ; 
the species now inhabiting the extreme northern lands being evidently 
such as have from time to time been compelled to take up their abode 
in these inhospitable and frigid wastes, and have not from choice 
