Asia Sentence Examples

It is still the most important trade centre in eastern Asia Minor.

It is as much Asia or Africa as New England.

There are also several Albanian settlements in European Turkey and Asia Minor, some founded by military colonists who received grants of land from successive sultans, others owing their origin to enforced migrations after insurrections in Albania.

In 1813-14 Rich spent some time in Europe, and on his return to Bagdad devoted himself to the study of the geography of Asia Minor, and collected much information in Syrian and Chaldaean convents concerning the Yezidis.

He also pointed out reasons for accepting a division of the land into three continents - Europe, Asia and Africa.

In Asia it is found on the Caucasus, but does not pass the Ural ridge into Siberia.

The vilayet suffered severely during the Russian occupation of 1878, when, apart from the natural dislocation of commerce, many of the Moslem cultivators emigrated to Asia Minor, to be free from their alien rulers.

It is chiefly found in the tropical parts of Asia and Africa, but has also been met with in South Carolina and several of the West Indian islands.

Spain, the Gauls, Britain and Africa, leaving to Valens the eastern half of the Balkan Peninsula, Greece, Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor as far as Persia.

The Hari-Rud marks the only important break existing in the continuity of the great central water-parting of Asia.

The plant generally understood by this name is Nepenthes, a genus containing nearly sixty species, natives of tropical Asia, north Australia and (one only) of Madagascar.

On the other hand, the Bactrian species, which is employed throughout a large tract of central Asia in the domesticated condition, appears, according to recent researches, to exist in the wild state in some of the central Asian deserts.

Whether he was the same as Sozon, a marine deity of southern Asia Minor, is doubtful.

All the Malagasy lemurs, which agree in the structure of the internal ear, are now included in the family Lemuridae, confined to Madagascar and the Comoro Islands, which comprises the great majority of the group. The other families are the Nycticebidae, common to tropical Asia and Africa, and the Tarsiidae, restricted to the Malay countries.

Professor Takakusu has shown the possibility of several complete books belonging to it being still extant in Chinese translations,' and we may yet hope to recover original fragments in central Asia, Tibet, or Nepal.

There news reached him that Avidius Cassius, the commander of the Roman troops in Asia, had revolted and proclaimed himself emperor (175).

It is a native of North Africa and Western and Central Asia, including North-West India.

In some species of Rana and Staurois inhabiting mountainous districts in south-eastern Asia, the larvae are adapted for life in torrents, being provided with a circular adhesive disk on the ventral surface behind the mouth, by means of which they are able to anchor themselves to stones.

It is possible that the floating of the head of Orpheus to Lesbos has reference to the fact that the island was the first home of lyric poetry, and may be symbolical of the route taken by the Aeolian emigrants from Thessaly on their way to their new home in Asia Minor.

In the former that of Europe and of Central Asia are continuous.

This confirms the theory of Christ that Europe was restocked mainly from Asia after the close of the glacial epoch, the south being closed to it.

Asia Minor has a Liquidam bar.

In the eastern forests the prevalence of Magnoliaceae and of Clethra and Rhododendron continues the alliance with eastern Asia.

The characteristic genus Pelargonium has a few Mediterranean representatives, and one even occurs in Asia Minor.

Fagus, starting from the northern hemisphere, has more than held its own in Europe and Asia, but has all but died out in North America, finding conditions favorable for a fresh start in Australasia.

His argument as to the narrowness of the sea between West Africa and East Asia, from the occurrence of elephants at both extremities, is difficult to understand, although it shows that he looked on the distribution of animals as a problem of geography.

Maximowiczfinds that 40% of the plants of Manchuria are common to Europe and Asia, but the proportion falls sharply to i6% in the case of Japan.

His monumental Vergleichende Geographie, which was to have made the whole world its theme, died out in a wilderness of detail in twenty-one volumes before it had covered more of the earth's surface than Asia and a portion of Africa.

At the least there should be some consideration of four separate systems of discovery - the Eastern, in which Chinese and Japanese explorers acquired knowledge of the geography of Asia, and felt their way towards Europe and America; the Western, in which the dominant races of the Mexican and South American plateaus extended their knowledge of the American continent before Columbus; the Polynesian, in which the conquering races of the Pacific Islands found their way from group to group; and the Mediterranean.

The Greco-Persian wars had made the remoter parts of Asia Minor more than a name to the Greek geographers before the time of Alexander the Great, but the campaigns of that conqueror from 329 to 325 B.C. opened up the greater Asia to the knowledge of Europe.

But it was the military genius of Rome, and the ambition for universal empire, which led, not only to the discovery, but also to the survey of nearly all Europe, and of large tracts in Asia and Africa.

In Asia they held Asia Minor and Syria, had sent expeditions into Arabia, and were acquainted with the more distant countries formerly invaded by Alexander, including Persia, Scythia, Bactria and India.

After this he revisited Syria and Asia Minor, and crossed the Black sea, the desert from Astrakhan to Bokhara, and the Hindu Kush.

He started in 1603, and, after traversing' the least-known parts of Central Asia, he reached the confines of China.

His valuable work, the Description of Arabia, was published in 1772, and was followed in 1 774 - 1 77 8 by two volumes of travels in Asia.

A striking fact in the configuration of the crust is cs 1'000 n that each continent, or elevated mass of the crust, is T diametrically opposite to an ocean basin or great de 5000 0 -5000 -15000 -20 2500 -300 pression; the only partial exception being in the case of southern South America, which is antipodal to eastern Asia.

South America and North America follow this type most closely; Eurasia (the land mass of Europe and Asia) comes next, while Africa and Australia are farther removed from the type, and the structure of Antarctica and Greenland is unknown.

Lofty lines of fold mountains form the " backbones " of North America in the Rocky of Mountains and the west coast systems, of South America in the Cordillera of the Andes, of Europe in the Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians and Caucasus, and of Asia in the mountains of Asia Minor, converging on the Pamirs and diverging thence in the Himalaya and the vast mountain systems of central and eastern Asia.

The most important of them are Termessus, near the frontier of Lycia, a strong fortress in a position of great natural strength and commanding one of the principal passes into Pamphylia; Cremna, another mountain fortress, north of the preceding, impending over the valley of the Cestrus; Sagalassus, a little farther north, a large town in a strong position, the ruins of which are among the most remarkable in Asia Minor; Selge, on the right bank of the Eurymedon, surrounded by rugged mountains, notwithstanding which it was in Strabo's time a large and opulent city; and Antioch, known for distinction's sake as Antioch of Pisidia, and celebrated for the visit of St Paul.

Comparatively uncommon in Western Europe, the Taenia saginata is common in Eastern Europe, Asia and South America.

Some of the finest flavoured tobaccos are produced in the regions around Cavalla in Macedonia and ancient Ephesus in Asia Minor.

After spending nearly six years in the office of his uncle, Benjamin Austen, a solicitor, he was tempted to leave England for Ceylon by the prospect of obtaining an appointment in the civil service, and he started in 1839 with the intention of making an overland journey across Asia.

His armies plundered Syria and Asia Minor, and in 608 advanced to Chalcedon.

Its general type approaches more closely to the African than to that of southern Asia.

In the north the Moslem arms reached Armenia and Asia Minor; on the west they were successful as far as Carthage on the north coast of Africa.

Othman was less careful, and allowed a fleet from Africa to help in the conquests of the aevant and Asia Minor.

Mehemet Ali and his son Ibrahim Pasha were, however, now committed to their conflict with Turkey for Syria and Asia Minor, and had no troops to spare for the thankless task of holding the Arabian deserts; the garrisons were gradually withdrawn, and in 1842 Fesal, who had escaped from his prison at Cairo reappeared and was everywhere recognized as amir.

They showed a zeal for evangelization which resulted in the establishment of their influence throughout Asia, as is seen from the bishoprics founded not only in Syria, Armenia, Arabia and Persia, but at Halavan in Media, Mer y in Khorasan, Herat, Tashkent, Samarkand, Baluk, Kashgar, and even at Kambaluk (Pekin) and Singan fu Hsi`en fu in China, and Kaljana and Kranganore in India.

Many of the great historic movements of peoples were doubtless due to the gradual change of geographical or climatic conditions; and the slow desiccation of Central Asia has been plausibly suggested as the real cause of the peopling of modern Europe and of the medieval wars of the Old World, the theatres of which were critical points on the great natural lines of communication between east and west.

In Europe and Asia frontiers are usually strongly fortified and strictly watched in times of peace as well as during war.

It is, however, to be noticed that absolute monarchies are confined to the east of Europe and to Asia, Japan being the only established constitutional monarchy east of the Carpathians.

Republics, although represented in Europe, are the peculiar form of government of America and are unknown in Asia.

His most influential friend was Pompey, who, when settling the affairs of Asia (63 or 62 B.C.), rewarded him with the title of king and an increase of territory (Lesser Armenia).

On the outbreak of the civil war, DeIotarus naturally sided with his old patron Pompey, and after the battle of Pharsalus escaped with him to Asia.

Crossing the Hellespont in 84 into Asia, he was joined by the troops of C. Flavius Fimbria, who soon deserted their general, a man sent out by the Marian party, now again in the ascendant at Rome.

Sulla returned to Italy in 83, landing at Brundisium, having previously informed the senate of the result of his campaigns in Greece and Asia, and announced his presence on Italian ground.

Indeed, the very name Australasia, often applied to this part of the world, would induce the belief that all the countless islands, be they large or small - and some of them are among the largest on the globe - were but a southern prolongation of the mainland of Asia.

Nearly 20 more are properly Palaearctic, but occasionally occur in America, and about 50 are Nearctic, which from time to time stray to Europe or Asia.

The Palaearctic Subregion is, broadly speaking, Europe and Asia, with the exception of India and China.

Without the pilgrims who come to visit it, Meshed would be a poor place, but lying on the eastern confines of Persia, close to Afghanistan, Russian Central Asia and Transcaspia, at the point where a number of trade routes converge, it is very important politically, and the British and Russian governments have maintained consulates-general there since 1889.

Meshed had formerly a great transit trade to Central Asia, of European manufactures, mostly Manchester goods, which came by way of Trebizond, Tabriz and Teheran; and of Indian goods and produce, mostly muslins and Indian and green teas, which came by way of Bander Abbasi.

With the opening of the Russian railway from the Caspian to Merv, Bokhara and Samarkand in 1886-1887, Russian manufacturers were enabled to compete in Central Asia with their western rivals, and the value of European manufactures passing Meshed in transit was much reduced.

In 1894 the Russian government enforced new customs regulations, by which a heavy duty is levied on Anglo-Indian manufactures and produce, excepting pepper, ginger and drugs, imported into Russian Asia by way of Persia; and the importation of green teas is altogether prohibited except by way of Batum, Baku, Uzunada and the Transcaspian railway.

Some require the hot, moist temperature of a stove; such are C. amabile, a native of Sumatra, C. amoenum (India), C. Balfourii (Socotra), C. giganteum (West tropical Africa), C. Kirkii (Zanzibar), C. latifolium (India), C. zeylanicum (tropical Asia and Africa), and others.

Others thrive in a greenhouse; such are C. asiaticum, a widely distributed plant on the sea-coast of tropical Asia, C. capense and C. longiflorum, from the Cape, and C. Macowani and C. Moorei from Natal.

Until the advent of the nomads from central Asia, and the devastation of Mesopotamia and the opposite Syrian shore of the river, there were many flourishing cities along its course, the ruins of which, representing all periods, still dot its banks.

The Greek form of Gallia was FaXaria, but Galatia in Latin denoted another Celtic region in central Asia Minor, sometimes styled Gallograecia.

Others had done a kindred work in a more distant field as helpers of the Eastern emperors against the Turks of Asia.

The greater portion, however, of the numerous bands which visit the British Islands in autumn and winter doubtless come from the Continent - perhaps even from far to the eastward, since its range stretches across Asia to Japan, in which country it is as favourite a cage-bird as with us.

As thus traced, the boundary in Central Asia includes the two khanates of Bokhara and Khiva, which, though nominally protected states, are to all intents and purposes integral parts of the Russian empire.

The deposits of the Post-Glacial period are represented throughout Russia, Poland and Finland, as also throughout Siberia and Central Asia, by very thick lacustrine deposits, which show that, after the melting of the ice-sheet, the country was covered with immense lakes, connected by broad channels (the fjarden of the Swedes), which later on gave rise to the actual rivers.

Asia, the same fauna extending in Siberia as far as the Yenisei and the Lena.

As a consequence this central Russian industry, even when supported by very high protective duties, is only able to produce for the home market and the markets of the adjacent territories in Asia which are under Russian political control.

This railway has become important for the export of raw cotton from Central Asia to Russia.

The nucleus of the invading horde was a small pastoral tribe in Mongolia, the chief of which, known subsequently to Europe as Jenghiz Khan, became a mighty conqueror and created a vast empire stretching from China, across northern and central Asia, to the shores of the Baltic and the valley of the Danube - a heterogeneous state containing many nationalities held together by purely administrative ties and by an enormous military force.

The result of the war was to make Russia supreme at Constantinople; and before long an opportunity of further increasing her influence was created by Mehemet Ali, the ambitious pasha of Egypt, who in November 1831 began a war with his sovereign in Syria, gained a series of victories over the Turkish forces in Asia Minor and threatened Constantinople.

Much greater success attended the efforts of Russian diplomacy and Russian arms in Asia.

Six years later began the rapid expansion of Russia in Central Asia, and at the end xxiii.

In Asia, after the accession of Nicholas II., the expansion of Russia, following the line of least resistance and stimulated by the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, took the direction of northern China and the effete little kingdom of Korea.

In Australia the increase in railway mileage in the five years ending December 31st, 1907 was about 7%-a small proportion as compared with America, Asia or Africa.

Palestinian states on the other, and that they could scarcely have escaped the all-pervading Babylonian influences of 2000-1400 B.C. It is now becoming clearer every day, especially since the discovery of the laws of Khammurabi, that, if we are to think sanely about Hebrew history before as well as after the exile, we can only think of Israel as part of the great complex of Semitic and especially Canaanite humanity that lived its life in western Asia between 2060 and 600 B.C.; and that while the Hebrew race maintained by the aid of prophetism its own individual and exalted place, it was not less susceptible then, than it has been since, to the moulding influences of great adjacent civilizations and ideas.

Excluding some varieties of domestic dogs, wolves are the largest members of the genus, and have a wide geographical range, extending over nearly the whole of Europe and Asia, and North America from Greenland to Mexico, but are not found in South America or Africa, where they are replaced by other members of the family.

The common cypress has been well known throughout the Mediterranean region since classic times; it may have been introduced from western Asia where it is found wild.

Here you find articles in the encyclopedia on topics related to the history of Asia.

It has a wide geographical distribution, being found in Europe (including England), Asia Minor, Burma, Straits Settlements, Java, China, Formosa, Egypt; west, south and Central Africa; Australia, South America, West Indies, United States and Canada, but is generally confined to local centres in those countries.

Commercial intercourse with Asia Minor, Arabia, Tarshish (probably in Spain) and Ophir filled his coffers, and his realm extended from the Euphrates to the border of Egypt.

Israel can no longer be isolated from the politics, culture, folk-lore, thought and religion of western Asia and Egypt.

However this may be, Alexander's tutor had been in Asia and had met a Jew there, if his disciple Clearchus of Soli is to be trusted.

And as we were staying in Asia at the time, the man cast up at the same place and interviewed us and other scholars, making trial of their wisdom.

They were not even a pawn in the game which Antiochus proposed to play with Rome for the possession of Greece and Asia Minor.

Wolves also are not found in the island, though common in Greece and Asia Minor.

From Sicily and even the Spanish coast to the Troad, southern Asia Minor, Cyprus and Palestine, - from the Nile valley to the mouth of the Po, very similar forms were now diffused.

He submitted to the opinion of the episcopate in the various parts of Christendom the divergence between the Easter usage of Rome and that of the bishops of Asia.

About forty years later (197) the question was discussed in a very different spirit between Victor, bisho p of Rome, and Polycrates, metropolitan of proconsular Asia.

Though he was unable to reach Khiva the results of the journey afforded a great deal of political, geographical and military information, especially as to the advance of Russia in central Asia.

It contains two small genera of tropical Asia and Africa with almost regular flowers, and the large genus Cypripedium containing about 80 species in the north-temperate zone and tropical Asia and America.

Coelogyninae, 7 genera, mostly epiphytes, and inhabitants of tropical Asia.

Cystopodiinae, includes 9 genera tropical, but extending into north temperate Asia and South Africa; Eulophia and Lissochilus 'are ' important African genera.

Vanda (Asia) and Angraecum (Africa and Madagascar) are known in cultivation.

Some of the earliest Greek geographers divided their known world into two portions only, Europe and Asia, in which last Libya (the Greek name for Africa) was included.

Herodotus, who ranks Libya as one of the chief divisions of the world, separating it from Asia, repudiates as fables the ordinary explanations assigned to the names Europe and Asia, but confesses his inability to say whence they came.

After the word Asia had acquired its larger sense, it was still specially used by the Greeks to designate the country around Ephesus.

On the east and south-east of Asia are several important groups of islands, the more southern of which link this continent to Australia, and to the islands of the Pacific. The Kurile Islands, the Japanese group, Luchu, Formosa and the Philippines, may be regarded as unquestionable outliers of Asia.

Between the islands of the Malay archipelago from Sumatra to New Guinea, and the neighbouring Asiatic continent, no definite relations appear ever to have existed, and no distinctly marked boundary for Asia has been established by the old geographers in this quarter.

Owing to the great extent of Asia, it is not easy to obtain a correct conception of the actual form of its outline from ordinary maps, the distortions which accompany projections of great and misleading.

Asia Minor and the north-western half of Arabia lie outside such a great circle, which otherwise indicates, with fair accuracy, the north-western boundary of Asia.

From such causes the physical conditions of a large part of Asia, and the history of its population, have been very greatly influenced by the occurrence of the mass of mountain above de Iiima- scribed, which includes the Himalaya and the whole tayan elevated area having true physical connexion with that boundary.

This great mass of mountain, constituting as it does a complete natural line of division across a large part of the continent, will form a convenient basis from which to work, in proceeding, as will now be done, to give a general view of the principal countries contained in Asia.

The portion of Asia west of British India, excluding Arabia and Syria, forms another extensive plateau covering an area as large as that of Tibet, though at a much lower altitude.

Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Iran or Persia, Armenia and the provinces of Asia Minor occupy this high region, with which they are nearly conterminous.

Below the north-east declivity of this range lies Georgia, on the other side of which province rises the Caucasus, the boundary of Asia and Europe between the Caspian and Black Seas, the highest points of which reach an elevation of nearly 19,000 ft.

West of Ararat high hills extend along the Black Sea, between which and the Taurus range lies the plateau of Asia Minor, reaching to the Aegean Sea; the mountains along the Black Sea, on which are the Olympus and Ida of the ancients, rise to 6000 or 7000 ft.; the Taurus is more lofty, reaching 8000 and 10,000 ft.; both ranges decline in altitude as they approach the Mediterranean.

Here the Tibetan mountains unite with the line of elevation which stretches across the continent from the Pacific, and which separates Siberia from the region commonly spoken of under the name of central Asia.

The central area bounded on the north and north-west by the Yablonoi Mountains and their western extension in the Tian-shan, on the south by the northern face of the Tibetan plateau, and on the east by the Khingan range before alluded to, forms the great desert of central Asia, known as the Gobi.

The portion of Asia which lies between the Arctic Ocean and the mountainous belt bounding Manchuria, Mongolia and Turkestan Siberia.

But while we have yet to wait for that expansion of principal triangulation which will bring Asia into connexion with Europe by the direct process of earth measurement, a topobetween graphical connexion has been effected between Russian Russ/an and Indian surveys which sufficiently proves that the and deductive methods employed by both countries for the Indian determination of the co-ordinate values of fixed points so surveys.

There is yet a vast field open in Asia for this class of surveys.

Of scientific geographical exploration in Asia (beyond the limits of actual surveys) the modern period has been so prolific that it is only possible to refer in barest outline to some of the principal Indian expeditions, most of which have been directed either to explorers.

Although the establishment of a lucrative trade between India and central Asia had been the dream of many successive Indian viceroys, and much had been done towards improving the approaches to Simla from the north, very little was in really known of the highlands of the Pamirs, or of the regions of the great central depression, before the mission of central Asia.

In 1885 Arthur Douglas Carey and Andrew Dalgleish, following more or less the tracks of Prjevalsky, contributed much that was new to the map of Asia; and in 1886 Captain (afterwards Sir Francis) Younghusband completed a most adventurous journey across the heart of the continent by crossing the Murtagh, the great mountain barrier between China and Kashmir.

Miles made his adventurous journey through Oman, while Theodore Bent threw searchlights backwards into ancient Semitic history by his investigations in the Bahrein Islands in 1888 and in Hadramut in 1894 - 181n northern Asia it is impossible to follow in detail the results of the organized Russian surveys.

In western Asia we have learned the exact value of the mountain barrier which lies between Mery and Herat, and have mapped Indian its connexion with the Elburz of Persia.

In Asia Minor, Syria and Mesopotamia there is little to record of progress in material development beyond the promises held out by the Euphrates Valley railway concession to a A s i a German company.

Asiatic Russia, especially eastern Siberia and Mongolia, have been brought within the sphere of Russian exploration, with results so surprising as to form an epoch in the history of Asia.

Russ a n Here there has been a development of the resources Asia.

This evidence of a gradual process of upheaval still in action may throw some light on the physical (especially the climatic) changes which must have passed over that part of Asia since Balkh was the " mother of cities," the great trade centre of Asia, and the plains of Balkh were green with cultivation.

In the restoration of the outlines of ancient and medieval geography in Asia Sven Hedin's discoveries of the actual remains of cities which have long been buried under the advancing waves of sand in the Takla Makan desert, cities which flourished in the comparatively recent period of Buddhist ascendancy in High Asia, is of the very highest interest, filling up a blank in the identification of sites mentioned by early geographers and illustrating more fully the course of old pilgrim routes.

Farther east no part of Asia has been brought under more careful investigation than the hydrography of the strange mountain wilderness that divides Tibet and Burma from China.

The period from about 1880 has been an era of boundary-making in Asia, of defining the politicogeographical limits of empire, and of determining the responsibilities of government.

A boundary was then fixed Asia.

While British India has so far avoided actual geographical contact with one great European power in Asia on the north and west, she has touched another on the east.

E Arabian Sea Ba Of G A L e Geological information incomplete Desert Deposits Quaternary Tertiary Mesozoic Palaeozoic Archaean and Metamorphic Younger Volcanic Rocks English Miles b iuHi iiiiuiiiiii after llargl,aua Geology The geology of Asia is so complex and over wide areas so little known that it is difficult to give a connected account of either the structure or the development of the continent, and only the broader features can be dealt with here.

North of this lies a broad belt in which the Mesozoic deposits and even the lower divisions of the Tertiary system are thrown into folds which extend in a series of arcs from west to east and now form the principal mountain ranges of central Asia.

It is, indeed, as if the high land of central Asia had been pushed southward against and over the unyielding mass formed by the old rocks of the Indian peninsula, and in the process the edges of the over-riding strata had been crumpled and folded.

Overlooking all smaller details, we may consider Asia to consist of a northern mass and a southern mass, too rigid to crumple, but not too strong to fracture, and an intermediate belt of softer rock which was capable of folding.

It is interesting to observe, as will be shown later, that during the Mesozoic era there was a land-mass in the north of Asia and another in the south, and between them lay the sea in which ordinary marine sediments were deposited.

Little is known of the early geological history of Asia beyond the fact that a large part of the continent was covered by the sea during the Cambrian and Ordovician periods.

But there is positive evidence that much of the north and east of Asia has been land since the Palaeozoic era, and it has been conclusively proved that the peninsula of India has never been beneath the sea since the Carboniferous period at least.

The greater part of western Asia, including the basin of the Obi, the drainage area of the Aral Sea, together with Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Persia and Arabia, was covered by the sea during the later stages of the Cretaceous period; but a considerable part 3f this region was probably dry land in Jurassic times.

The sea in which these strata were deposited seems to have attained its greatest extension in Upper Cretaceous times, when its waters spread over the whole of western Asia and even encroached slightly upon the Indian land.

The formation of this and of the other great mountain chains of central Asia resulted in the isolation of portions of the former central sea; and the same forces finally led to the elevation of the whole region and the union of the old continents of Angara and Gondwana.

In the southern region of unfolded beds are found the lavas of the " harras " of Arabia, and in India the extensive flows of the Deccan Trap. In the central folded belt lie the great volcanoes, now mostly extinct, of Asia Minor, Armenia, Persia and Baluchistan.

These figures sufficiently indicate the main characteristics of the air temperatures of Asia.

The moderating effect of the proximity of the ocean is felt in an important degree along the southern and eastern parts of Asia, where the land is broken up into islands or peninsulas.

In illustration of the very slow diffusion of heat in the solid crust of the earth, and as affording a further indication of the climate of northern Asia, reference may here be made to the frozen soil of Siberia, in the vicinity of Yakutsk.

Although the foregoing account of the temperatures of Asia supplies the main outline of the observed phenomena, a very important modifying cause, of which more will be said hereafter, comes into operation over the whole of the tropical region, namely, the periodical summer rains.

The south-westerly winds which prevail north of the equator during the hot half of the year, to which navigators have given the name of the south-west monsoon (the latter word being a corruption of the Indian name for season), arise from the great diminution of atmospheric pressure over Asia, which begins to be strongly marked with the great rise of temperature in April and May, and the simultaneous relatively higher pressure over the equator and the regions south of it.

This diminution of pressure, which continues as the heat increases till it reaches its maximum in July soon after the solstice, is followed by the corresponding development of the south-west monsoon; and as the barometric pressure is gradually restored, and becomes equalized within the tropics soon after the equinox in October, with the general fall of temperature north of the equator, the south-west winds fall off, and are succeeded by a north-east monsoon, which is developed during the winter months by the relatively greater atmospheric pressure which then occurs over Asia, as compared with the equatorial region.

The China Sea is fully exposed to both monsoons, the normal directions of which nearly coincide with the centre of the channel between the continent of Asia and the eastern islands.

Among the more remarkable phenomena of the hotter seas of Asia must be noticed the revolving storms or cyclones, which are of frequent occurrence in the hot months in the Indian Ocean and China Sea, in which last they are known under the name of typhoon.

The heated body of air carried from the Indian Ocean over southern Asia by the south-west monsoon comes up highly charged with watery vapour, and hence in a condition to release a large body of water as rain upon the land, whenever it is brought into circumstances which reduce its temperature in a notable degree.

Too little is known of the greater part of Asia to admit of any more being said with reference to this part of the subject, than to mention a few facts bearing on the rainfall.

In northern Asia there is a generally equal rainfall of 19 to 29 in.

In Afghanistan, Persia, Asia Minor and Syria, winter and spring appear to be the chief seasons of condensation.

In other parts of Asia the principal part of the rain falls between May and September, that is, in the hottest half of the year.

A similar affinity exists between the life of the southern parts of Europe and that in the zone of Asia extending from the Mediterranean across to the Himalaya and northern China.

This belt, which embraces Asia Minor, northern Persia, Afghanistan, and the southern slopes of the Himalaya, from its elevation has a temperate climate, and throughout it the rainfall is sufficient to maintain a vigorous vegetation, while the summers, though hot, and the winters, though severe, are not extreme.

The area between the southern border of Siberia and the margin of the temperate alpine zone of the Himalaya and north China, comprising what are commonly called central Asia, Turkestan, Mongolia and western Manchuria, is an almost rainless region, having winters of extreme severity and summers of intense heat.

Much still remains to be done in the exploration of China and eastern Asia; but it is known that many of the special forms of this region extend to the Himalaya, while others clearly indicate a connexion with North America.

The foregoing brief review of the principal territorial divisions according to which the forms of life are distributed in Asia, indicates how close is the dependence of this distribution on climatic conditions, and this will be made more apparent by a somewhat fuller account of the main features of the flora and fauna.

The flora of the whole of northern Asia is in essentials the same as that of northern Europe, the differences being due rather to variations of species than of genera.

In southern India, and the other parts of Asia and of the islands having a similar climate, the difference of the winter and summer half-years is not sufficient to admit of the proper cultivation of wheat or barley.

The analysis of the Hong Kong flora indicates that about threefifths of the species are common to the Indian region, and nearly all the remainder are either Chinese or local forms. The number of species common to southern China, Japan and northern Asia is small.

The vegetation of the dry region of central Asia is remarkable for the great relative number of Chenopodiaceae, Salicornia and other Central salt plants being common; Polygonaceae also are abun Asia.

The south-eastern portion of Asia, with the adjacent islands of Sumatra, Java, Borneo and the Philippines, form his Indian region.

Nearly all the mammals of Europe also occur in northern Asia, where, however, the Palaearctic fauna is enriched by numerous additional species.

Characteristic forms of this order in northern Asia are the marmots (Arctomys) and the pikas, or tailless hares (Lagomys).

The great order of Ungulata is represented by various forms of sheep, as many as ten or twelve wild species of Ovis being met with in the mountain chains of Asia; and more sparingly by several peculiar forms of antelope, such as the saiga (Saiga tatarica), and the Gazella gutturosa, or yellow sheep. Coming to the deer, we also meet with characteristic forms in northern Asia, especially those belonging to the typical genus Cervus.

The musk deer (Moschus) is also quite restricted to northern Asia, and is one of its most peculiar types.

The ornithology of northern Asia is even more closely allied to that of Europe than the mammal fauna.

One of the most peculiar of these is the genus Phasianus, of which splendid birds all the species are restricted in their wild state to northern Asia.

The still more magnificently clad gold pheasants (Thaumalea), and the eared pheasants (Crossoptilon), are also confined to certain districts in the mountains of north-eastern Asia.

The mammal fauna of the Indian region of Asia is much more highly developed than that of the Palaearctic. The Quadrumana are represented by several peculiar genera, amongst which are Semnopithecus, Hylobates and Simia.

The Carnivora are likewise numerous; and this region may be considered as the true home of the tiger, though this animal has wandered far north into the Palaearctic division of Asia.

The family Eurylaemidae is entirely confined to this part of Asia.

The Ethiopian fauna plays but a subordinate part in Asia, intruding only into the south-western corner, and occupying the desert districts of Arabia and Syria, although some of the characteristic species reach still farther into Persia and Sind, and even into western India.

Of the sea fishes of Asia, among the Acanthopterygii, or spinyrayed fishes, the Percidae, or perches, are largely represented; the genus Serranus, which has only one species in Europe, is Fishes.

The Squamipennes, or scaly-finned fishes, are principally found in the seas of southern Asia, and especially near coral reefs.

The Stromateidae, or pomfrets, resemble the dory, a Mediterranean form, and extend to China and the Pacific. The sword fishes, Xiphiidae, the lancet fishes, Acanthuridae, and the scabbard fishes, Trichuridae, are distributed through the seas of south Asia.

Among the Anacanthini, the cod family so well known in Europe shows but one or two species in the seas of south Asia, though the soles and allied fishes are numerous along the coasts.

Only one Silurus is found in Europe, and the same species extends to southern Asia and Africa.

The Salmonidae are entirely absent from the waters of southern Asia, though they exist in the rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean and the neighbouring parts of the northern Pacific, extending perhaps to Formosa; and trout, though unknown in Indian rivers, are found beyond the watershed of the Indus, in the streams flowing into the Caspian.

The Cyprinidae, or carp, are largely represented in southern Asia, and there grow to a size unknown in Europe; a Barbus in the Tigris has been taken of the weight of 300 Th.

The walking or climbing fishes, which are peculiar to south-eastern Asia and Africa, are organized so as to be able to breathe when out of the water, and they are thus fitted to exist under conditions which would be fatal to other fishes, being suited to live in the regions of periodical drought and rain in which they are found.

The insects of all southern Asia, including India south of the Himalaya, China, Siam and the Malayan Islands, belong to one.

Of the domesticated animals of Asia may first be mentioned the elephant.

The horse is produced, in the highest perfection in Arabia and the hot and dry countries of western Asia.

In general terms they extend, with modifications of character probably due to admixture with other types and to varying conditions of life, over the whole of northern Asia as far south as the plains bordering the Caspian Sea, including Tibet and China, and also over the IndoMalayan peninsula and Archipelago, excepting Papua and some of the more eastern islands.

Next in numerical importance to the Mongolians are the races which have been called by Professor Huxley Melanochroic and Xanthochroic. The former includes the dark-haired people of southern Europe, and extends over North Africa, Asia Minor, Syria to south-western Asia, and through Arabia and Persia to India.

The distribution of the Mongolian group in Asia offers no particular difficulty.

The Mongolians of the northern half of Asia are almost entirely nomadic, hunters and shepherds or herdsmen.

The Turks are Mahommedans; their tribes extend up the Oxus to the borders of Afghanistan and Persia, and to the Caspian, and under the name of Kirghiz into Russia, and their language is spoken over a large part of western Asia.

The predatory habits of the Turkish, Mongolian and Manchu population of northern Asia, and their irruptions into other parts of the continent and into Europe, have produced very remarkable results in the history of the world.

The name of Aryan has been given to the races speaking languages derived from, or akin to, the ancient form of Sanskrit, who now occupy the temperate zone extending from the Mediterranean, across the highlands of Asia Minor, Persia and Afghanistan, to India.

West of the Sutlej the population of Asia may be said to be wholly Mahommedan with the exception of certain relatively small areas in Asia Minor and Syria, where Christians predominate.

These Tajiks (as they are usually called) form the underlying population of Persia, Baluchistan, Afghanistan and Badakshan, and their language (in the central districts of Asia) is found to contain words of Aryan or Sanskrit derivation which are not known in Persian.

Uzbegs and Kirghiz have but small affinity with the Mongol element of Asia.

Ethnographers have traced a connexion between the Turkoman of central Asia and the Teutonic races of Europe, based on a similarity of national customs and immemorial usage.

Some of them migrated from districts which belong to eastern Asia, but none of them penetrated into India by eastern passes.

Later most of the historic invasions of India from central Asia followed the route which leads directly from Kabul to Peshawar and Delhi.

The identification of existing peoples with the various Scythic, Persian and Arab races who have passed from High Asia into the Indian borderland, has opened up a vast field of ethnographical inquiry which has hardly yet found adequate workers for its investigation.

The borders assigned to Asia on the west are somewhat arbitrary.

The Urals indicate no real division of races, and in both Greek and Turkish times Asia Minor has been connected with the opposite shores of Europe rather than with the lands lying to the east.

A juster view of early history is probably obtained by thinking of the countries round the Mediterranean as interacting on one another than by separating Palestine and Asia Minor as Asiatic.

Attention has often been called to the religious character of Asia.

Christianity has made little way farther east then Asia Minor.

Modern missions have made no great conquests there, and in earlier times the Nestorians and Jacobites who penetrated to central Asia, China and India, received respectful hearing, but never had anything like the success which attended Buddhism and Islam.

Since Asiatic records go back much farther than those of Europe, it is natural the Asia should be thought the birthplace of civilization.

Both in Europe and in Asia small feudal or aristocratic states tended to consolidate themselves into monarchies, but whereas in Europe from the early days of Rome onwards royalty has often been driven out and replaced temporarily or permanently by popular government, this change seems not to occur in Asia, where revolution means only a change of dynasty.

In many parts of southern Asia are found semi-barbarous races representing the earliest known stratum of population, such as the Veddahs of Ceylon, and various tribes in China General a nd the Malay Archipelago.

In northern Asia are found other aborigines, such as the Ainus of Japan and the so-called hyperborean races (Chukchis, &c.), but no materials are at present forthcoming for their history.

We do not know if the Mongols, Turks, &c., had any earlier home than central Asia, but their extensive movements from that region are historical.

It has profoundly affected and to a large extent subjugated all western Asia including India, all eastern and northern Africa as well as Spain, and all eastern Europe.

Soon after the Christian era central Asia began to boil over, and at least seven great.

Apart from conquest their most important function has been to keep up communications in central Asia, and to transport religions and civilizations from one region to another.

These ancient states began to decline in the 7th century B.e., and on their ruins rose the Persian empire, which with various political metamorphoses continued to be an important power till the 7th century A.D., after which all western Asia was overwhelmed by the Moslem wave, and old landmarks and kingdoms were obliterated.

It is generally agreed that this civilization can be traced back to an earlier race, the Sumero-Akkadians, whose language seems allied to the agglutinative idioms of central Asia.

Still less is known of the early non-Aryan races of Asia Minor such as the Hittites and Alorodians.

The dominions of the latter extended across central Asia to northern India, but were dismembered by the attacks of the Kitans, whence the name Cathay.

This sudden development of the Japanese is perhaps the most important event of the second half of the 19th century, since it marks the rise of an Asiatic power capable of competing with Europe on equal terms. Their history is so different from that of the rest of Asia that it is not surprising if the result is different.

Unlike the Chinese and Indians, they have hitherto not had the smallest influence on the intellectual development of Asia, and though they have in the past sometimes shown themselves intensely nationalist and conservative, they have, compared with India and China, so little which is really their own that their assimilation of foreign ideas is explicable.

The Aryans appear to have been settled to the north of the Hindu Kush, and to have migrated south-eastwards about 150o B.C. Their original home has been a subject of much discussion, but the view now prevalent is that they arose in southern Russia or Asia Minor, whence a section spread eastwards and divided into two closely related branches - the Hindus and Iranians.

The latter was finally absorbed, and disappeared in India itself, but has spread Indian influence over the whole of eastern Asia, where it still flourishes.

The immediate result was small, but the establishment of Perso-Greek kingdoms in central Asia had a powerful influence on Indian art and culture.

They never subjugated the south, but the empire which they founded in the north was for about two centuries, under such rulers as Akbar and Shah Jehan, one of the most brilliant which Asia has seen.

Even the great dynasties have left few traces, and it is with difficulty that the patient historian disinters the minor kingdoms from obscurity, but Indian religion, literature and art have influenced all Asia from Persia to Japan.

It is reasonable to suppose that their ancestors and those of the Hindus at one time formed a single tribe somewhere in central Asia.

Bactria soon became independent under an IndoGreek dynasty, and the blending of Greek, Persian, central Asiatic and Hindu influences had an important effect on the art and religion of India, and through India on all eastern Asia.

Owing to its position, the Persian state, when it from time to time became a conquering empire, overlapped Asia Minor, Babylon and India, and hence acted as an intermediary for transmitting art and ideas, sending for instance Greek sculpture to India and the cult of Mithra to western Europe.

On the other hand, the wars between Persia and Greece were recognized both at the time and afterwards as a struggle between Europe and Asia; the fact that both combatants were Aryans was not felt, and has no importance compared to the difference of continent.

There is no reason why their descendants should not be found to-day in various tribes, but the physical type commonly called Jewish is characteristic not so much of Israel as of western Asia generally.

From choice or compulsion large numbers settled in Egypt in the time of the Ptolemies, and added an appreciable element to Alexandrine culture, while gradual voluntary emigration established Jewish communities in Syria, Asia Minor, Greece and Italy, who facilitated the first spread of Christianity.

They successfully invaded India and central Asia in the east, Spain and Morocco in the west.

But in spite of this total political collapse, Arabic religion and literature are still one of the greatest forces working in the western half of Asia, in northern Africa and to some extent in eastern Europe.

The Japanese have produced few books of importance, and their compositions are chiefly remarkable as being lighter and more secular than is usual in Asia, but the older Chinese works take high rank both for their merits and the effect they have had.

The Pali versions of Buddha's discourses are among the most remarkable products of Asia.

If one excepts the Old Testament, which is a product of the extreme west of Asia, it is remarkable how small has been the influence of Asiatic literature on Europe.

Without counting subdivisions, there would seem to be three main schools of art in Asia at present - Chinese, Indian and Moslem.

In both art and literature modern Asia is inferior to the past more conspicuously than Europe.

As for science, astronomy was cultivated by the Babylonians at an early period, and it is probably from them that a knowledge of the heavenly bodies and their movements spread over Asia.

It is only natural that Europe should have chiefly felt the influence of western Asia.

Any general statement as to the debt owed by early European civilizations to western Asia would at present be premature, for though important discoveries have been made in Crete and Babylonia the best authorities are chary of positive conclusions as to the relations of Cretan civilization to Egypt and Babylonia.

In historic times Asia has attempted to assert her influence over Europe by a series of invasions, most of which have been repulsed.

The Turks, and to some extent the Arabs in Spain, were successful because they first conquered the parts of Asia and Africa adjoining Europe, so that the final invaders were in touch with Asiatic settlements.

The influence of Asia on Africa has been considerable, and until the middle of the 10th century greater than that of Europe.

The relation to Asia of the pre-European civilizations of America is another of those questions which admit of no definite answer at present, though many facts support the theory that the semi-civilized inhabitants of Mexico and Central America crossed from Asia by Bering Straits and descended the west coast.

Some authorities hold that Peruvian civilization had no connexion with the north and was an entirely indigenous product, but Kechua is in structure not unlike the agglutinative languages of central and northern Asia.

European influence on Asia has been specially strong at two epochs, firstly after the conquests of Alexander the Great, and secondly from the r6th century onwards.

Alexander's conquests resulted in the foundation of a Perso-Greek kingdoms in Asia, which not only hellenized their own area but influenced the art and religion of India and to some extent of China.

Somewhat later the Crusades kept up communication with the Levant, and established there the power of the Roman Church, somewhat to the detriment of oriental Christianity, but intercourse with farther Asia was limited to the voyages of a few travellers.

Looking at eastern Europe and western Asia only, one must say that Asiatic influences have on the whole prevailed hitherto (though perhaps the tide is turning), for Islam is paramount in this region and European culture at a low ebb.

But the case is quite different if one looks at the two continents as a whole, for improvement in means of communication has brought about strange vicissitudes, and western Europe has asserted her power in middle and eastern Asia.

The movement was maritime and affected the nations in the extreme west of Europe rather than those nearer Asia, who were under the Turkish yoke.

Also the parts of Asia affected were chiefly India and the extreme East.

It will thus be seen that European (excluding Russian) power in Asia is based almost entirely on improved navigation.

Before the century was out the Dutch appeared as the successful rivals of the Portuguese, but the real struggle for supremacy in southern Asia took place between France and England about 1740-1783.

Another category of European possessions in Asia comprises those acquired towards the end of the 19th century, such as Indo-China (France), Burma and Wei-Hai-Wei (Britain), and Kiao-Chow (Germany).

It seemed to be assumed that Asia was to be divided among the powers of Europe, and each was anxious to get its share or more.

The advance of Russia in Asia is entirely different from that of the other powers, since it has taken place by land and not by sea.

As the Russian possessions in Asia are continuous with European Russia, it is only natural that they should have been russified far more thoroughly than the British possessions have been anglicized.

There has been great difference of opinion as to the extent to which Alexander's conquests influenced Asia, and it is equally hard to say what is the effect now being produced by Europe.

Harpagus afterwards stood in high favour with Cyrus, and commanded the army which subdued the coasts of Asia Minor; his family seems to have been settled in Lycia.

As the chief port of north-west Asia Minor, the place prospered greatly in Roman times, and the existing remains sufficiently attest its former importance.

This depression is supposed to be a relic of the former post-Pliocene connexion between the Black Sea and the Caspian, and is accepted by most geographers as the natural frontier between Europe and Asia, while others make the dividing-line coincide with the principal water-parting of the Caucasus mountain system.

During the RussoTurkish War of 1877-78 the self-exiled Circassians and other Caucasian mountaineers, supported by a force of 14,000 Turks, made a determined attempt to wrest their native glens from the power of Russia; but, after suffering a severe defeat at the hands of General Alkhazov, the Turks withdrew, and were accompanied by some 30,000 Abkhasians, who settled in Asia Minor.

Cultivated pears, whose number is enormous, are without doubt derived from one or two wild species widely distributed throughout Europe and western Asia, and sometimes forming part of the natural vegetation of the forests.

At Cyzicus also, in Asia Minor, bulls were sacrificed to Proserpine.

Seleucus, as a young man of about twenty-three, accompanied Alexander into Asia in 333, and won distinction in the Indian campaign of 326.

In 301 he joined Lysimachus in Asia Minor, and at Ipsus Antigonus fell before their combined power.

A new partition of the empire followed, by which Seleucus added to his kingdom Syria, and perhaps some regions of Asia Minor.

He intended to leave Asia to Antiochus and content himself for the remainder of his days with the Macedonian kingdom in its old limits.

In Asia Minor he was unable to reduce Bithynia or the Persian dynasties which ruled in Cappadocia.

War did not materially change the outlines of the two kingdoms, though frontier cities like Damascus and the coast districts of Asia Minor might change hands.

War with Egypt still went on along the coasts of Asia Minor (the "Second Syrian War").

About 250 peace was concluded between Antiochus and Ptolemy II., Antiochus repudiating his wife Laodice and marrying Ptolemy's daughter Berenice, but by 246 Antiochus had left Berenice and her infant son in Antioch to live again with Laodice in Asia Minor.

Berenice's brother, Ptolemy III., who had just succeeded to the Egyptian throne, at once invaded the Seleucid realm and marched victoriously to the Tigris or beyond, receiving the submission of the eastern provinces, whilst his fleets swept the coasts of Asia Minor.

In the interior of Asia Minor Seleucus maintained himself, and when Ptolemy returned to Egypt he recovered Northern Syria and the nearer provinces of Iran.

In Asia Minor his younger brother Antiochus Hierax was put up against him by a party to which Laodice herself adhered.

Only in Asia Minor, where the Seleucid cause was represented by the king's cousin, the able Achaeus, was its prestige restored and the Pergamene power driven back to its earlier limits.

Meanwhile Achaeus himself had revolted and assumed the title of king in Asia Minor.

Having thus recovered the central part of Asia Minor - for the dynasties in Pergamum, Bithynia and Cappadocia the Seleucid government was obliged to tolerate - Antiochus turned to recover the outlying provinces of the north and east.

In 197 Antiochus moved to Asia Minor to secure the coast towns which had acknowledged Ptolemy and the independent Greek cities.

In 191, however, he was routed at Thermopylae by the Romans under Manius Acilius Glabrio, and obliged to withdraw to Asia.

Cornelius Scipio at Magnesia ad Sipylum (190), following on the defeat of Hannibal at sea off Side, gave Asia Minor into their hands.

The tree is very widely distributed, growing abundantly on most of the mountain ranges of northern and central Europe; while in Asia it occurs at least as far east as the Lena, and in latitude extends from the Altaic ranges to beyond the Arctic circle.

In Asia it occurs on the Caucasus and Ural, and in some parts of the Altaic chain.

Asia Minor and the West developed the strict ecclesiastical forms by means of which the church closed her lines against heathenism, and especially against heresy; in Alexandria Christian ideas were handled in a free and speculative fashion and worked out with the help of Greek philosophy.

In the East, especially in Asia Minor, it was still no unusual thing for laymen, with permission of the bishop, to address the people in the church.

Commerce with Egypt, for example, has increased in a marked degree, and Aegean objects or imitations of them are found to have begun to penetrate into Syria, inland Asia Minor, and the central and western Mediterranean lands, e.g.

The foundation of the system is obviously to be sought in Gnosticism, and more particularly in the older type of that doctrine (known from the serpent symbol as Ophite or Naassene) which obtained in Mesopotamia and Further Asia generally.

The scope of this work was originally intended to be limited to North America, but circumstances induced him to include all the species of Northern Europe and Northern Asia, and though not free from errors it is a praiseworthy performance.

A Monograph of the Odontophorinae or Partridges of America (1850); The Birds of Asia, in seven volumes, the last completed by Mr Sharpe (1850-1883); The Birds of Great Britain, in five volumes (1863-1873); and The Birds of New Guinea, begun in 1875, and, after the author's death in 1881, undertaken by Mr Sharpe, make up the wonderful tale consisting of more than forty folio volumes, and containing more than three thousand coloured plates.

The Persians were not quit of the Ephthalites until 557 when Chosroes Anushirwan destroyed their power with the assistance of the Turks, who now make their first appearance in western Asia.

The European wild boar (Sus scrof a) is distributed over Europe, northern Africa, and central and northern Asia.

She now commanded the Adriatic, the Ionian islands, the archipelago, the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea, the trade route between Constantinople and western Europe, and she had already established herself in the seaports of Syria, and thus held the trade route between Asia Minor and Europe.

Especially prominent in Europe, classical, medieval and modern, and in East Asia, is the spirit of the lake, river, spring, or well, often conceived as human, but also in the form of a bull or horse; the term Old Nick may refer to the water-horse Nok.

The dominion of Alp Arslan now extended over the fairest part of Asia; 1200 princes or sons of princes surrounded his throne and 200,000 warriors were at his command.

The Persians swept victoriously over Asia Minor and North Syria; not however without resistance on the part of Odenathus, who inflicted considerable losses on the bands returning home from the pillage of Antioch.

Meanwhile the Palmyrenes were pushing their influence not only in Egypt but in Asia Minor; they contrived to establish garrisons as far west as Ancyra and even Chalcedon opposite Byzantium, while still professing to act under the terms of the joint rule conferred by Gallienus.

In accordance with the judicious policy which he had observed in Asia Minor and at Antioch, he granted full pardon to the citizens; only the chief officials and advisers were put to death; Zenobia and her son were captured and reserved for his triumph when he returned to Rome.

Its southern extremity penetrates into the high plateau of Asia, and the lake lies entirely in the Alpine zone which fringes that plateau on the north-west.

South America, the West Indies, tropical Africa and Southern Asia are the homes of the various members, but the plants have been introduced with success into other lands, as is well indicated by the fact that although no species of Gossypium is native to the United States of America, that country now produces over twothirds of the world's supply of cotton.

Some cotton is produced in European Russia in the southern Caucasus, but Turkestan in central Asia is by far the 1 Cotton Production 1906, U.S.A. Bureau of the Census, Bulletin No.

From this point of view, the Crusades appear as a reaction of the West against the pressure of the East - a reaction which carried the West into the East, and founded a Latin and Christian kingdom on the shores of Asia.

Nor, indeed, must it be forgotten that the search for new and more direct connexions with the routes of Oriental trade is one of the motives underlying the Crusades themselves, and leading to what may be called the 13th-century discovery of Asia.

The result of the defeat was the loss of almost the whole of Asia Minor; the dominions of the Turks extended to the sea of Marmora.

He had appealed for reinforcements to recover Asia Minor; he received hundreds of thousands of troops, independent of him, and intending to conquer Jerusalem for themselves, though they might incidentally recover Asia Minor for the Eastern empire on their way.

Before we follow this host into Asia, we may pause to inquire into the various factors which would determine its course, or condition its activity.

The condition of Asia Minor and Syria in 1097 was almost altogether such as to favour the success of the crusaders.

Accordingly, when the crusaders had captured the town at Nicaea, and defeated the Seljukian field-army at Dorylaeum their way lay clear before them through Asia Minor.

A new sultan, Barkiyaroq or Barkiarok, ruled in Bagdad (1094-1104); but in Asia Minor Kilij Arslan held sway as the independent sultan of Konia (Iconium), while the whole of Syria was also practically independent.

But each of the three sections of their army was routed in turn in Asia Minor by the princes of Sivas, Aleppo and Harran, in the middle of I ror; and only a few escaped to report the crushing disaster.

Thus, although Alexius had been able, in the wake of the crusading armies, to recover a large belt of land round the whole coast of Asia Minor, - the interior remaining subject to the sultans of Konia (Iconium) and the princes of Sivas, - he left the territories to the east of the western boundary of Cilicia in the hands of the Latins when he died in 1118.

Little driblets of men might indeed be added to the numbers of the Franks; but the great bodies of crusaders either perished in Asia Minor, as in I ioi and 1147, or found themselves thwarted and distrusted by the native Franks.

Louis VII., who now appeared, was induced by this failure to take the long and circuitous route by the west coast of Asia Minor; but even so he had lost the majority of his troops when he reached the Holy Land in 1148.

But terms were at last arranged, and by the end of March 1190 the Germans had all crossed to the shores of Asia Minor.

The Armenians in the south-east of Asia Minor borrowed feudal institutions from the Franks and the feudal vocabulary itself.

This last fact in particular caused western Europe to dream of an alliance with the great khan "Prester John," who should aid in the reconquest of Jerusalem and the final conversion to Christianity of the whole continent of Asia.

Nothing came of either of these missions; but through them Europe first began to know the interior of Asia, for Carpini was conducted by the Mongols as far as Karakorum, the capital of the great khan, on the borders of China.