ools of water and streams flowing in four
directions. It is remarkable and highly suggestive how closely the
following topographical details, given by Grote, of the original
seat of the Macedonians (which were in the regions east of the chain
of Skardus, north of the chain which connects Olympus with Pindus
and which forms the northwestern boundary of Thessaly), coincide
with the conception of Mt. Meru, for instance.

"Reckoning the basin of Thessaly as a fourth, here are four distinct
inclosed plains on the east side of this long range of Skardus and
Pindus,--each generally bounded by mountains which rise precipitously
to an alpine height, and each leaving only one cleft for drainage by
a single river,--the Axius, the Erigon, the Haliakmon and the Peneius
respectively. All four plains ... are of distinguished fertility
..." (Grote, _op. cit._ vol. IV, p. 10). The close vicinity of
Olympus, the Grecian "divine mountain," is particularly suggestive,
inasmuch as it proves to be geographically associated with four
remarkable plains and rivers.

145 "This metaphorical name (the Krittakas) was derived from the
vocabulary of the Northern races, who had learned in Asia Minor and
the neighborhood of the Caspian Sea to spin thread and weave cloth
from the flax of Asia Minor, and the hemp of the shores of the
Caspian Sea, and who had taken their knowledge with them when
emigrating to the villages of the Neolithic life in Europe and to
the Kushite Empire in India, where they divided the people into
guilds or trade unions, founded on community of function, and
discovered how to use cotton thread for weaving. The reverence of
the Ashura Kushika for the Pleiades, whose mother star is Amba, also
proves them to be connected with the southwestern Semites, the
Himydritic Arabs of Southern Arabia, the land of Sheba, meaning
_seven_, meaning the seven stars of the constellation of the Great
Bear, called by the Arabs Al-suha, who first worshipped the Pleiades
with its 6 stars, the sacred number of the Ashura, as their mother
constellation, under the name of Tur-ayya, or children of the
father-pole (tur, of the Turanian race) ..." (Hewitt).

146 Various writers have observed and pointed out the close resemblance
in form and decoration, betwee