Page:The Rise of American Civilization (Volume 1).djvu/15



HE discovery, settlement, and expansion of America form merely one phase in the long and restless movement of mankind on the surface of the earth. When the curtain of authentic history first rose on the human scene, tribes, war bands, and armies had already seared plains and valleys with their trails and roads and launched their boats on the trackless seas. Viewed from a high point in time, the drama of the races seems to be little more than a record of migrations and shifting civilizations, with their far-reaching empires—Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Abyssinian, Athenian, Roman, Mongol, Turkish,