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In a zone of the Asiatic Continent, between 30 degrees and 45 degrees North, and from 30 degrees to 120 degrees East, about 900 miles in breadth, and nearly 4,000 miles in length (between Asia Minor and Africa on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other), are some of the most extensive countries of the earth, and most productive and fruitful. Intermixed with them are many mountains, and deserts, high lands, and arid plains, with inland seas, lakes, and rivers. In some of these countries the people live in settled homes, engaged in agricultural pursuits; in others the Nomadic tribes, dwelling in tents, wander from place to place with their flocks, ever seeking fresh fields of pasture.

Such countries have, in Historic times, been the theatre of some of the most tragical events recorded in history, in which great nations have been the actors, and in which the empires of the Assyrians, the Medes, and the Persians, have each in turn risen, flourished, and long since been destroyed.

In times of peace the people have lived industrious lives, growing in wealth and numbers, acquiring the habits of civilization, cultivating the arts and sciences, and then have been swept away by some new wave of invading peoples, who have likewise given place to others.

It is a very reasonable presumption that, in Prehistoric times, similar eventful scenes have been enacted, and that, during the convulsions which overwhelmed the ancient great centres of civilization,