In the dawn of post-diluvian history we find the family which then constituted the human race, moving westward down the slope of the great table-land of Iran, and encamping on the banks of the broad Euphrates, on the rich alluvial soil of Shinar, and seeking there to found for themselves permanent homes around the mighty tower, which they are said for forty years to have reared in defiance of Heaven. The influences were then at work that have ever since impelled the masses of mankind in all ages to seek the lowlands to build their towns and cities, and erect their empires on the shores of seas and lakes, and on the banks of navigable streams. History and tradition coincide in showing that the cradle of our race was located among those highlands of Central and Southern Asia, which spread out from the base of the great chain of Caucasus or Ararat, and comprise an area estimated at upwards of seventeen hundred square miles. Thence the forefathers of the Aryan race went forth to people the lowlands and the valleys; for it is a remarkable fact, that in the lowlands, not the highlands, of the world, the seats of population and power have nearly always been found.

A zone or section of country averaging six hundred miles in breadth from north to south, and extending from the Atlantic ocean on the west to the desert of Mongolia and the mountain regions of Thibet on the east, a distance of about four thousand miles, may be said to have included all the seats of civilization, population and empire of the ancient world, from the epoch of the dispersion of mankind after the deluge, to the Christian era, and even down to the fifth century. All the great cities of the ancient world; all those mighty empires, which extended the shadow of their power and influence over the civilized portions of the earth; all those states, whose eminence in art, science, literature, or political economy, have affected the human race in all succeeding ages; all the centers even of religious propagandism, have originated or have been located within this favored region.

This zone comprises the basin of the Mediterranean sea on the west, and the table-land of Iran or Persia in the east. The Sahara or Libyan desert and the mountainous shores of the Indian ocean bound it on the south, and on the north it is sharply defined by an almost continuous chain of mountains, commencing at Corunna, in the north-west corner of Spain, and traversing the continents of Europe and Asia under the various names of the Pyrenees, the Cevennes, the Alps, the Balkan, the Taurus, the Caucasus, and the Paropamisus, or Hindoo Koosh mountains, until we reach those central highlands of the Asiatic

continent, whence modern ethnologists deduce the early population of the world, and where the great ridge separates and divides itself into four vast branches. These are the Altai, running northward and eastward between China and Siberia to Behring strait, where they may be said to effect a junction with the American mountain system; the Thian Shah, or Celestial mountains, forming the back-bone of the continent and losing themselves in the wilds of Mongolia; the KuenLun, which traverses Thibet, and the giant Himalayas, the culminating summits of the earth, which shut out the northern blasts from India, and sink into the Pacific ocean at the end of the peninsula of Malacca. Singularly enough, only two great rivers, the Nile and the Euphrates, are found in the zone in question; but it is characterized by small streams, bays, gulfs and inlets, and by a diversity of climate, soil and agricultural products favorable to man's existence, unparalleled anywhere on the surface of the globe.

On the boundary between the eastern and the western division of this zone in the great Mesopotamian plain, watered by the Euphrates and the Tigris, arose Babylon and Ninevah, the first great monarchies of antiquity. In the long and narrow valley of the Nile, peculiarly fortified and defended by nature from foreign invasion, the kingdom. of Egypt was established, and flourished for two thousand years un. der the long line of the Pharaohs. For nearly two thousand years almost all that we know of the human race, and of its transactions, occurred in the region between the Tigris and the Nile.

Here Ninus and Semiramis, Sesostris and Osymandias, Moses and Joshua, David and Solomon, Sardanapalus and Nebuchadnezzar, struggled and contended for good or for evil, for empire or for religion. Within this comparatively narrow sphere, all that constitutes the history of that period may be said to have been enacted. Outside of its limits, clouds and darkness rested upon the world; barbarian hordes roamed, and vast forests covered the face of the earth; and if, in some quarters-China, for example-some rays of civilization illumined the scene, our vision of the fact is too indistinct to convey any definite idea to the mind.

The most remarkable revolutions of the ancient world were due either to the efforts of ambitious leaders within the "zone of civilization" to extend their dominion beyond its barriers, or to the counteracting impulses of the barbarian tribes eager to overrun their borders and possess themselves of the spoils of the more cultivated nations. Thus. in the sixth century, before the Christian era, the nomadic

hordes of Turkestan and Mongolia came down upon Southern Asia for the first time within the authentic period of history, though, no doubt, they had often come down before; and a century later, the Aryan races, under Cyaxares and Cyrus, overturned the Semitic and Hamite monarchies of Babylon, Syria and Egypt.

The southern line of the zone which we have mentioned is of so peculiar a character as almost to preclude the possibility of incursions of barbarous tribes from that quarter in sufficiently formidable numbers to affect seriously the condition of the civilized world. Often, indeed, did the Ethiopians of Abyssinia, from the fountains of the Nile, descend along that famous river upon the strongholds of Egypt. But these Ethiopians were scarcely less civilized than their Egyptian neighbors, and the influence of their invasions was scarcely felt beyond Egypt itself. Once only, and that at a time subsequent to the period of which we spoke in the beginning (namely, in the seventh century of our era), did the tide of what is usually denominated barbaric conquest, roll over the civilized world from the south. We refer to the extraordinary phenomenon of Mohammedanism, under the influence of which the fanatical tribes of Arabia reared an empire greater than that of the Cæsars.

The course of barbarian invasion and conquest has generally been directed from the north to the south. Beyond the mountain barrier (which, indeed, has never proved a barrier at all) already mentioned as constituting the northern boundary of the zone of population, stretches what may be considered a vast plain, of which the western portion was, in the ancient times, covered with vast forests, while the eastern was composed of boundless plains, extensive pasture lands, and sandy deserts, peopled by nomadic tribes, whose only, or principal occupation, was war or the chase. In the eastern portion of this region, on the borders of China, commenced in the second century of our era, that movement of the barbarian hordes which, surging westward like a tidal wave, forced itself into Southern Asia and Europe, threatened Constantinople in the fourth century, and in the fifth utterly overthrew the Roman empire of the West. But to this very overthrow is in some measure due the extension of population, civilization and empire beyond its ancient boundaries, culminating in the discovery of the New World.

The boundaries of nations and states are usually natural, not arbitrary. The discovery of the mouth of a river carries with it the right to the possession of the country it drains. When the American

commonwealth was discovered by Columbus four hundred years ago, the fact that two vast continents were lying between Europe and Asia did not dawn upon the European mind for one hundred and six

teen years.

In 1492 Columbus made his first discovery. In 1606 King James I. made grants of territory to the so-called Virginia company for two colonies. The first comprised a strip of uncertain breadth along the sea coast, extending from the thirty-fourth to the forty-first parallel; the second, a strip extending from the thirty-eighth to the fortyfifth parallel. The overlapping area from the thirty-eighth to the forty-fifth parallel was to be the property of the company effecting the first permanent settlement therein. Under the first grant the Jamestown colony was established. Under the second, no successful attempt at colonization was made. In 1609 King James I. granted a second charter in place of the first above noted, embracing the country 200 miles north and 200 miles south of Old Point Comfort, and extending from the Atlantic to the South sea.

In 1620 a new charter was granted, called the Great Patent, extending from the fortieth to the forty-eighth parallel of latitude, and westward to the South sea. Under this grant all the earliest settlements in New England were made, the Plymouth company making sub-grants for this purpose.

One of the first of these was the grant to the Massachusetts Bay company of the land lying between lines drawn three miles north of all parts of the Merrimac river, and three miles south of Charles and Massachusetts bay. In 1630 the Plymouth colony, although not founded under the auspices of the Plymouth company, succeeded in obtaining a grant of land lying between the Cohasset and the Narragansett rivers, and extending westward "to the utmost bounds of a county in New England, called Pokanoket, alias Sowamset."

In 1622 the Plymouth company granted Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason, jointly, the country between the Merrimac and the Kennebec rivers, thereafter called by its owners "Laconia" and Maine. In 1629 that portion of this land lying west of the Piscataqua was granted to Captain Mason, making him the possessor of the lower part of the present New Hampshire. At the time of the dissolution of the Plymouth company, in 1635, the rest of Laconia was granted to Gorges. The remaining part of the present State of Maine lying east of the Kennebec had been patented by two other parties, in separate tracts.

The entire area of the state was patented to Gorges by the king in 1639. In 1677 this was purchased of his heirs by the Massachusetts colonies for the sum of £1,250, and remained under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts until 1820.

The territory was granted in 1631 by the Plymouth company to Lords Say and Seal, Brook and others. Its limits were defined in the grant as follows: "All that part of New England west of the Narragansett river extending the space of forty leagues upon a straight line from the sea shore toward the south and west, as the coast lieth toward Virginia, accounting three English miles to the league, and also all and singular the lands and hereditaments whatsoever lying and being within said lands, north and south in latitude and breadth and length, and longitude of and within all the breadth appraised throughout the main land there from sea to sea." The first settlements were made between 1633-36, mainly by emigrants from Massachusetts. Others came over from England and settled in other parts of the grant, and, in 1662, the King of England consolidated all these infant settlements and granted them a charter under the name of Connecticut.

In 1664 a grant was made by the Crown to the "Incorporation of Providence Plantations," on the Narragansett bay, in New England, comprising most of the present area of Rhode Island.

In 1663 a new charter was obtained for Rhode Island and the Providence plantations.

New York was first settled by the Dutch, who claimed all the country between the fortieth and forty-fifth parallels of north latitude, under the right of discovery and exploration by Hendrick Hudson. This claim was never recognized by the English, and in 1664 King Charles II., in spite of the charter of Connecticut and the claims of the Dutch, made a grant to the Duke of York of all the lands between the Connecticut river and the east bank of Delaware bay. It included also, but apparently only nominally, the eastern part of Maine and all of Long Island, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. The Dutch settlements were taken by force of arms in 1664, recaptured by the Dutch in 1673, and, in the following year, restored to the English by the treaty of Westminster.

In 1683 the Duke of York having succeeded his brother as King of England, this grant, comprising essentially New York and New Jersey, became the property of the Crown.

The first charter of Pennsylvania was granted in 1681 to William' Penn. It defined the territory as follows: "Bounded on the east by the