h, where, almost treeless, they furnished great pasture ranges for
flocks and herds, which also added to the permanency of the food supply
and helped to develop the wealth and prosperity of the country. It was
in this climate, so favorable for the development of early man, and
with this fertile soil yielding such bountiful productions, that the
ancient Chaldean civilization started, which was followed by the
Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations, each of which developed a great
empire. These empires, ruling in turn, not only represented centres of
civilization and wealth, but they acquired the overlordship of
territories far and wide, their monarchs ruling eastward toward India
and westward toward Phoenicia. In early times ancient Chaldea, located
on the lower Euphrates, was divided into two parts, the lower portion
known as Sumer, and the other, the upper, known as Akkad. While in the
full development of these civilizations the Semitic race was dominant,
there is every appearance that much of the culture of these primitive
peoples came from farther east.

_Influences Coming from the Far East_.--The early inhabitants of this
country have sometimes been called Turanian to distinguish them from
Aryans, Semites, and other races sometimes called Hamitic. They seem
to have been closely allied to the Mongolian type of people who
developed centres of culture in the Far East and early learned the use
of metals and developed a high degree of skill in handicraft. The
Akkadians, {155} or Sumer-Akkadians, appear to have come from the
mountain districts north and east, and entered this fertile valley to
begin the work of civilization at a very early period. Their rude
villages and primitive systems of life were to be superseded by
civilizations of other races that, utilizing the arts and industries of
the Akkadians, carried their culture to a much higher standard. The
Akkadians are credited with bringing into this country the methods of
making various articles from gold and iron which have been found in
their oldest tombs. They are credited with having laid the foundation
of the industrial arts which were manifested at an early time in
ancient Chaldea, Egypt, and later in Babylonia and Phoenicia. Whatever
foundation there may be for this theory, the subsequent history of the
civilizations which have developed from Thibet as a centre would seem
to attribute the early skill in handiwork in the metals and in
porcelain and gla