that he goes beyond possibility-though, of course, that is a very different thing from proving his case. But, if the blond longheads are thus ancient, the problem of their primitive seat puts on an altogether new aspect. Speculation must take into account climatal and geographical conditions widely different from those which obtain in northern Eurasia at the present day. During much of the vast length of the pleistocene period, it would seem that men could no more have lived either in Britain north of the Thames, or in Scandinavia, or in northern Germany, or in northern Russia, than they can live now in the interior of Greenland, seeing that the land was covered by a great ice sheet like that which at present shrouds the latter country. At that epoch, the blond longheads cannot reasonably be supposed to have occupied the regions in which we meet with them in the oldest times of which history has kept a record.

But even if we are content to assume a vastly less antiquity for the Aryan race; if we only make the assumption, for which there is considerable positive warranty, that it has existed in Europe ever since the end of the pleistocene period-when the fauna and flora assumed approximately their present condition and the state of things called Recent by geologists set inwe have to reckon with distribution of land and water, not only very different from that which at present obtains in northern Eurasia, but of such a nature that it can hardly fail to have exerted a great influence on the development and the distribution of the races of mankind.

At the present time, four great separate bodies of water, the Black Sea, the Caspian, the Sea of Aral, and Lake Balkash, occupy the southern end of the vast plains which extend from the Arctic Sea to the highlands of the Balkan peninsula, of Asia Minor, of Persia, of Afghanistan, and of the high plateaus of central Asia as far as the Altai. They lie for the most part between the parallels of 40° and 50° N. and are separated by wide stretches of barren and salt-laden wastes. The surface of Balkash is 514 feet, that of the Aral 158 feet above the Mediterranean, that of the Caspian eighty-five feet below it. The Black Sea is in free communication with the Mediterranean by the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles; but the others, in historical times, have been, at most, teinporarily

connected with it and with one another, by relatively insignificant channels. This state of things however is comparatively modern. At no very distant period, the land of Asia Minor was continuous with that of Europe, across the present site of the Bosphorus, forming a barrier several hundred feet high, which dammed up the waters of the Black Sea. A vast extent of eastern Europe and of western central Asia thus became a huge reservoir, the lowest part of the lip of which was probably situated somewhat more than 200 feet above the sea level, along the present southern watershed of the Obi, which flows into the Arctic Ocean. Into this basin, the largest rivers of Europe, such as the Danube and the Volga, and what were then great rivers of Asia, the Oxus and Jaxartes, with all the intermediate affluents, poured their waters. In addition, it received the overflow of Lake Balkash, then much larger; and, probably, that of the inland sea of Mongolia. At that time, the level of the Sea of Aral stood at least 60 feet higher than it does at present. Instead of the separate Black, Caspian, and Aral seas, there was one vast PontoAralian Mediterranean, which must have been prolonged into arms and fiords along the lower valleys of the Danube, the Volga (in the course of which Caspian shells are now found as far as the Kuma), the Ural, and the other affluent rivers while it seems to have sent its overflow northward through the present basin of the Obi. At the same time, there is reason to believe that the northern coast of Asia, which everywhere shows signs of recent slow upheaval, was situated far to the south of its present position. The consequences of this state of things have an extremely important bearing on the question under discussion. In the first place, an insular climate must be substituted for the present extremely continental climate of west central Eurasia. That is an important fact in many ways. For example the present eastern climatal limitations of the beech could not have existed, and if primitive Aryan goes back thus far, the arguments based upon the occurrence of its name in some Aryan languages and not in others

*This is proved by the old shore-marks on the hill of Kashkanatao in the midst of the ancient level very much higher-200 feet or delta of the Oxus. Some authorities put the more (Keane, Asia, p. 408).

lose their force. In the second place, the European and the Asiatic moieties of the great Eurasiatic plains were cut off from one another by the Ponto-Aralian Mediterranean and its prolongations. In the third place, direct access to Asia Minor, to the Caucasus, to the Persian highlands, and to Afghanistan, from the European moiety was completely barred; while the tribes of eastern central Asia were equally shut out from Persia and from India by huge mountain ranges and table lands. Thus, if the blond long-bead race existed so far back as the epoch in which the Ponto-Aralian Mediterranean had its full extension, space for its development, under the most favorable conditions, and free from any serious intrusion of foreign elements from Asia, was presented in northern and castern Europe.

When the slow erosion of the passage of the Dardanelles drained the PontoAralian waters into the Mediterranean, they must have everywhere fallen as near the level of the latter as the make of the country permitted, remaining, at first, connected by such straits as that of which the traces yet persist between the Black and the Caspian, the Caspian and the Aral Seas respectively. Then, the gradual elevation of the land of northern Siberia, bringing in its train a continental climate, with its dry air and intense summer heats, the loss by evaporation soon exceeded the greatly reduced supply of water, and Balkash, Aral, and Caspian gradually shrank to their present dimensions. In the course of this process, the broad plains between the separated inland seas, as soon as they were laid bare, threw open easy routes to the Caucasus and to Turkestan, which might well be utilized by the blond longheads moving eastward through the plains contemporaneously left dry south and east of the Ural chain. The same process of desiccation, however, would render the route from east central Asia westward as easily practicable; and, in the end, the Aryan stock might easily be cut in two, as we now find it to be, by the movement of the Mongoloid brunet broad-heads to the

west.

Thus we arrive at what is practically Latham's Sarmatian hypothesis-if the term "Sarmatian" is stretched a little, so as to include the higher parts and a good deal of the northern slopes of Europe between the Ural and the German Ocean; an im

mense area of country, at least as large as that now included between the Black Sea, the Atlantic, the Baltic, and the Mediter

ranean.

If we imagine the blond long-head race to have been spread over this area, while the primitive Aryan language, was in course of formation, its north-western and its south-eastern tribes will have been 1,500 or more miles apart. Thus, there will have been ample scope for linguistic differentiation; and, as adjacent tribes were probably influenced by the same causes, it is reasonable to suppose that, at any given region of the periphery the process of differentiation, whether brought about by internal or external agencies, will have been analogous. Hence, it is permissible to imagine that, even before primitive Aryan had attained its full development, the course of that development had become somewhat different in different localities; and, in this sense, it may be quite true that one uniform primitive Aryan language never existed. The nascent mode of speech may very early have got a twist, so to speak, toward Lithuanian, Slavonian, Teutonic, or Celtic in the north and west; toward Thracian and Greek in the southwest; toward Armenian in the south; toward Indo-Iranian in the south-east. With the centrifugal movements of the several fractions of the race, these tendencies of peripheral groups would naturally become more and more intensified in proportion to their isolation. No doubt, in the centre and in other parts of the periphery of the Aryan region, other dialectic groups made their appearance; but whatever development they may have attained, these have failed to maintain themselves in the battle with the Finno-tataric tribes, or with the stronger among their own kith and kin*

Thus I think that the most plausible hypothetical answers which can be given to the two questions which we put at starting are these. There was and is an Aryan race that is to say, the characteristic modes of speech, termed Aryan, were developed among the blond long-heads alone, however much some of them may have been modified by the importation of nonAryan elements. As to the "home" of

See the views of J. Schmidt (stated and discussed in Schrader and Jevons, pp. 63-67), with which those here set forth are substan

tially identical.

the Aryan race, it was in Europe, and lay chiefly, east of the central highlands and west of the Ural. From this region it spread west, along the coasts of the North Sea to our islands, where, probably, it met the brunet long-heads; to France, where it found both these and the brunet shortheads; to Switzerland and South Germany, where it impinged on the brunet shortheads; to Italy, where brunet short-heads seem to have abounded in the north and long-heads in the south; and to the Balkan peninsula, about the earliest inhabitants of which we know next to nothing. There are two ways to Asia Minor, the one over the Bosphorus and the other through the passes of the Caucasus, and the Aryans may well have utilized both. Finally, the south-eastern tribes probably spread themselves gradually over west Turkestan, and, after evolving the primitive Indo-Iranian dialect, eventually colonized Persia and Hindostan, where their speech developed into its final forms. On this hypothesis, the notion that the Celts and the Teutons migrated from about Pamir and the Hindoo-Koosh is as far from the truth as the supposition that the Indo Iranians migrated from Scandinavia. It supposes that the blond long-heads, in what may be called. their nascent Aryan stage, that is before their dialects had taken on the full Aryan characteristics, were spread over a wide region which is, conventionally, European; but which, from the point of view of the physical geographer, is rather to be regarded as a continuation of Asia. Moreover, it is quite possible and even probable, that the blond long-heads may have arrived in Turkestan before their language had reached, or at any rate passed beyond, the stage of primitive Aryan; and that the whole process of differentiation into Indo-Iranian took place during the long ages of their residence in the basin of the Oxus. Thus, the question whether the seat of the primitive Aryans was in Europe, or in Asia, becomes very much a debate about geographical terminology.

The foregoing arguments in favor of Latham's Sarmatian hypothesis" have been based upon data which lie within the ken of history or may be surely concluded by reasoning backward from the present state of things. But, thanks to the investigations of the pre-historic archaeologists, and anthropologists during the last half

century, a vast mass of positive evidence respecting the distribution and the condition of mankind in the long interval between the dawn of history and the commencement of the recent epoch has been brought to light.

During this period, there is evidence that men existed in all those regions of Europe which have yet been properly examined; and such of their bony remains as have been discovered exhibit no less diversity of stature and cranial conformation than at present. There are tall and short men; long-skulled and broad-skulled men; and it is probably safe to conclude that the present contrast of blonds and brunets existed among them when they were in the flesh.

Moreover it has become clear that, everywhere, the oldest of these people were in the so-called neolithic stage of civilization. That is to say, they not merely used stone implements which were chipped into shape, but they also employed tools and weapons brought to an edge by grinding. At first they know little or nothing of the use of metals; they possess domestic animals and cultivated plants and live in houses of simple construction.

In some parts of Europe little advance seems to have been made, even down to historical times. But in Britain, France, Scandinavia, Germany, Western Russia, Switzerland, Austria, the plain of the Po, very probably also in the Balkan peninsula, culture gradually advanced until a relatively high degree of civilization was attained. The initial impulse in this course of progress appears to have been given by the discovery that metal is a better material for tools and weapons than stone. In the early days of pre-historic archæology, Nilsson showed that, in the interments of the middle age, bronze largely took the place of stone, and that, only in the latest, was iron substituted for bronze. Thus arose the generalization of the occurrence of a regular succession of stages of culture, which were somewhat unfortunately denominated the "ages" of stone, bronze, and iron. For a long time after this order of succession in the same locality (which, it was sometimes forgotten, has nothing to do with chronolog ical contemporaneity in different localities) was made out, the change from stone to bronze was ascribed to foreign, and, of course, Eastern influences. There were the

ubiquitous Phoenician traders and the immigrant Aryans from the Hindoo-Koosh, ready to hand. But further investigation has proved for various parts of Europe and made it probable for others, that though the old order of succession is correct it is incomplete, and that a copper stage must be interpolated between the neolithic and the bronze stages. Bronze is an artificial product, the formation of which implies a knowledge of copper; and it is certain that copper was, at a very early period, smelted out of the native ores, by the people of central Europe who used it. When they learned that the hardness and toughness of their metal were immensely improved by alloying it with a small quantity of tin, they forsook copper for bronze and gradually attained a wonderful skill in bronze-work. Finally, some of the European people became acquainted with iron, and its superior qualities drove out bronze, as bronze had driven out stone, from use in the manufacture of implements and weapons of the best class. But the process of substitution of copper and bronze for stone was gradual, and, for common purposes, stone remained in use long after the introduction of metals.

The pile dwellings of Switzerland have yielded an unbroken archæological record of these changes. Those of eastern Switzerland ceased to exist soon after the appearance of metals, but in those of the Lakes of Neuchatel and Bienne the history is continued through the stage of bronze to the beginning of that of iron. And in all this long series of remains, which lay bare the minutest details of the life of the pile dwellers, from the neolithic to the perfected bronze stage, there is no indication of any disturbance such as must have been caused by foreign invasion; and such as was produced by intruders, shortly after the iron stage was reached. Undoubtedly the constructors of the pile-dwellings must have received foreign influences through the channel of trade, and may have received them by the slow immigration of other races. Their amber, their jade, and their tin show that they had commercial intercourse with somewhat distant regions. The amber, however, takes us no further

"Proved" is perhaps too strong a word. But the evidence set forth by Dr. Much (Die Kupferzeit in Europa, 1886) in favor of a copper stage of culture among the inhabitants of the pile dwellings is very weighty.

But

than the Baltic; and it is now known that jade is to be had within the boundaries of Europe, while tin lay no further off than north Italy. An argument in favor of oriental influence has been based upon the characters of certain of the cultivated plants and domesticated animals. even that argument does not necessarily take us beyond the limits of south-eastern Europe; and it needs reconsideration in view of the changes of physical geography and of climate to which I have drawn attention.

In connection with this question there is another important series of facts to be taken into consideration. When, in the seventeenth century, the Russians advanced beyond the Ural and began to occupy Siberia, they found that the majority of the natives used implements of stone and bone. Only a few possessed tools or weapons of iron, which had reached them by way of commerce ; the Ostiaks and the Tatars of Tom, alone, extracted their iron from the ore. It was not until the invaders reached the Lena, in the far east, that they met with skilful smiths among the Jakuts,* who manufactured knives, axes, lances, battle-axes, and leather jerkins studded with iron; and among the Tunguses and Lamuts, who had learned from the Jakuts.

But there is an older chapter of Siberian history which was closed in the seventeenth century, as that of the people of the piledwellings of Switzerland had ended when the Romans entered Helvetia. Multitudes of sepulchral tumuli, termed, like those of European Russia, "kurgans," are scattered over the north Asiatic plains, and are especially agglomerated about the upper waters of the Jenisei. Some are modern, while others, extremely ancient, are attributed to a quasi-mythical people, the Tschudes. These Tschudish kurgans abound in copper and gold articles of use and luxury, but contain neither bronze nor iron. The Tschudes procured their copper and their gold from the metalliferous rocks of the Ural and the Altai; and their old shafts, adits, and rubbish heaps

* Andree, Die Metalle bei den Naturvölkern (p. 114). It is interesting to note that the Jakuts have always been pastoral nomads, formerly shepherds, now horse-breeders, and that they continue to work their iron in the primitive fashion; as the argument that metallurgic skill implies settled agricultural life not unfrequently makes its appearance.

led the Russians to the rediscovery of the forgotten stores of wealth. The race to which the Tschudes belonged and the age of the works which testify to their former existence, are alike unknown. But seeing that a rumor of them appears to have reached Herodotus, while, on the other hand, the pile-dwelling civilization of Switzerland may perhaps come down as late as the fifth century B.C., the possibility that a knowledge of the technical value of copper may have travelled from Siberia westward must not be overlocked. If the idea of turning metals to account must needs be Asiatic, it may be north Asiatic just as well as south Asiatic. In the total absence of trustworthy chronological and anthropological data, speculation may run wild.

The oldest civilizations for which we have an, even approximately, accurate chronology are those of the valleys of the Nile and of the Euphrates. Here, culture seems to have attained a degree of perfection, at least as high as that of the bronze stage, six thousand years ago. But before the intermediation of Etruscan, Phoenician, and Greek traders, there is no evidence that they exerted any serious influence upon Europe or northern Asia. As to the old civilization of Mesopotamia, what is to be said until something definite is known about the racial characters of its originators, the Accadians? As matters stand, they are just as likely to have been a group of the same race as the Egyptians or the Dravidians as anything else. And considering that their culture developed in the extreme south of the Euphrates valley, it is difficult to imagine that its influence could have spread to northern Eurasia except by the Phoenician (and Carian?) intermediation which was undoubtedly operative in comparatively late times.

Are we then to bring down the discovery of the use of copper in Switzerland to, at earliest, 1500 B. C., and to put it down to Phoenician hints? But why copper? At that time the Phoenicians must have been familiar with the use of bronze. And if, on the other hand, the northern Eurasiatics had got as far as copper, by the help of their own ingenuity, why deny them the capacity to make the further step to bronze? Carry back the borrowing system as far as we may, in the end we must needs come to some man or men from whom the novel idea started, and who after

many trials and errors gave it practical shape. And there really is no ground in the nature of things for supposing that such men of practical genius may not have turned up, independently, in more races than one.

The capacity of the population of Europe for independent progress while in the copper and early bronze stage-the "palæometallic" stage, as it might be calledappears to me to be demonstrated in a remarkable manner by the remains of their architecture. From the crannog to the elaborate pile-dwelling, and from the rudest enclosure to the complex fortification of the terramare, there is an advance which is obviously a native product. So with the sepulchral constructions; the stone cist, with or without a preservative or memorial cairn, grows into the chambered graves lodged in tumuli; into such megalithic edifices as the dromic vaults of Maes How and New Grange; to culminate in the finished masonry of the tombs of Mycenae, constructed on exactly the same plan. Can any one look at the varied series of forms which lie between the primitive five or six flat stones fitted together into a mere box, and such a building as Maes How, and yet imagine that the latter is the result of foreign tuition? But the men who built Maes How, without metal tools, could certainly have built the so-called "treasure house" of Mycenæ, with them.

If these old men of the sea, the heights of Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir and the plain of Shinar, had been less firmly seated upon the shoulders of anthropologists, I think they would long since have seen that it is at least possible that the early civilization of Europe is of indigenous growth; and that, so far as the evidence at present accumulated goes, the neolithic culture may have attained its full development, copper may have gradually come into use, and bronze may have succeeded copper, without foreign intervention.

So far as I am aware, every raw material employed in Europe up to the palecmetallic stage, is to be found within the limits of Europe; and there is no proof that the old races of domesticated animals and plants could not have been developed within these limits. If any one chose to maintain, that the use of bronze in Europe originated among the inhabitants of Etruria and radiated thence, along the already es