. High
mountains thus came to be regarded as the birthplaces of living
races.

"Geological theories give their part to render these notions
popular; not only the late speculations of the Count de Buffon and
the learned Bailly, but the opinions of ancient philosophers, who
maintained, before the time of Justin and of Pliny, that the
mountains of high Asia must have been the part of the world first
inhabited by men, inasmuch as that region must have been first
refrigerated in the gradual cooling of the surface of our planet,
and first raised sufficiently above the level of the ocean.
Moreover, the poetical traditions of the ancient world describe
high mountains as the scenes of the first mythical adventures of
gods and men--as the resting-places on which celestial or aerial
beings alighted from their cloudy habitations, to take up their
abode with men, and to become the patriarchs of the human race.
Lofty mountains are the points in the geography of our globe on
which the first dawn of historic light casts its early beams; hence
the legends of the first ages begin their thread. In the cosmogony
of the Hindoos, it was on the summit of the sacred mountain
Maha-meru, which rises in the midst of the seven _dwipas_, or great
peninsulas, like the stalk between the expanded petals of a lotus,
that Brahma, the creator, sits enthroned on a pillar of gold and
gems, adored by Rishis and Gandharbhas; while the regents of the
four quarters of the universe hold their stations on the four faces
of the mountain. Equally famed in the ancient mythology of Iran and
of Zoroaster, is the sacred mountain Albordy, based upon the earth,
but raising through all the spheres of heaven, to the region of
supernal light, its lofty top, the seat of Ormuzd, whence the
bridge Ishinevad conducts blessed spirits of pious men to Gorodman,
the solid vault of heaven, the abode of Ferouers and Arnshaspands.
Even the prosing disciples of Confucius had their sacred mountain
of Kuen-lun, where, according to the legends of their forefathers,
was the abode of the early patriarchs of their race. The Arabs and
the Persian Moslemin had their poetical Kaf. The lofty hills of
Phrygia and of Hellas--Ida, Olympus, Pindus--were, as every one
knows, famous in Grecian story. Caucasus came in for a