Earliest Seats of Human Civilisation.—Four gifted families of the human race occupy a considerable portion of the Old World. The great Aryan nations people nearly the whole of Europe and considerable portions of Persia and India ; the Turanian nations occupy China and the vast tract of country known as Thibet and the Chinese Tartarv ; the Semitic races are the masters of Arabia and other parts of Western Asia ; and the Hamitic races are still represented in the north-east of Africa. Sections of these four races became civilised in very remote ages, and a warm climate, a fertile soil, and inundating and fertilising rivers determined the earliest seats of their civilisation.
