Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/347

Rh, presumes a migration of the former in the earliest dawn of antiquity.

In our opinion, it was this race which first gave the migratory impulse to the men inhabiting the Old World. The members of this race are well known to be almost exclusively nomads, whose support is derived from the abundance of their herds and the fertility of their pastures. It would only need one bad year, or a plague among their flocks, to constrain these powerful hordes to invade the territory of their neighbors and expel them from their lands. These latter were compelled in a similar manner to press upon their neighbors, whereupon the various tribes were set in motion upon every side.

If we regard the Indo-Europeans as neighbors of the Upper Asiatics, and the Semitic and Hamitic peoples next to them, we can understand how in consequence of a pressure of the Upper Asiatics on the Indo-Europeans these must again impinge upon the Semitic and Hamitic race. Whereas the latter were pushed toward Africa, where they imparted their migratory motion to the autochthonous races, as described above, the Semitic pressed into the seats occupied before by the Hamites, and allowed the Indo-Europeans room to expand unhindered east and west. Thus they in turn urged the Dravidas on one side into India, and on the other various tribes into Europe, compelling those migrations which we have briefly sketched above.

After this first migration of the Upper Asiatic races, which occurred before the commencement of the civilizations of China and Egypt, we encounter a second which originated those commonly known ethnic movements which can be more closely followed, as they fall within the historic period.

In consequence of this migration, the Hungarians and Osmanli reached the grounds occupied by them, and there was caused, through the entrance of the Germanic and Slavic peoples into the heart of Europe, that intermixture in consequence of which the Roman people arose, and the various Germanic and Slavic tribes attained their marked individuality.

As to the last of the races, the central or midland, it appears that their primitive scats should be looked for in the Armenian highlands. The migration from this center of the four branches of this race, viz., the Basques, the so-called Caucasians, the Hamito-Semites, and the Indo-Europeans, can thus be easily understood, though the displacement of this original seat farther east would certainly make the distribution of the Indo-Europeans, if not that of the other three, more comprehensible.

From the midland tribes the Basques first separated, turning toward the west, to Europe; the Caucasians followed, and their hordes, pushing to the north, found in the mountains of Caucasus a barrier which permitted them to extend their limits but slowly. The two remaining clans, viz., the Hamito-Semitic and Indo-Europeans, were