share of the
reverence paid to the high places of the earth. Caucasus, however,
was not the cradle of the human race, but the dwelling-place of
Prometheus, the maker of men, and the teacher of astronomy."

Abandoning this somewhat dreamy view, Dr Prichard regards, consistently
with the Scriptural account, the birthplace of man as being on the banks
of fertilizing rivers, and at a period when the world was, by its
vegetable and animal productions, prepared for his reception, and adopts
three divisions as being those of which we have the earliest records;
1st, the _Semitic_ or _Syro-Arabian_, inhabiting countries between Egypt
and the Ganges. 2dly, the _Japetic_, _Indo-European_, or _Arian_,
spreading from the mouths of the Ganges over the greater part of Europe.
And 3dly, the Egyptian or _Hamitish_,{B} who peopled the banks of the
Nile, and of whom the African negroes are probably a degenerate
offshoot. With regard to the knowledge of letters possessed by these
three nations, our author gives two inconsistent statements. He says:--

"The three celebrated nations whose history we have surveyed,
appear alone to have possessed in the earliest times the use of
letters, and by written monuments to have transmitted to the last
ages memorials of their existence. It seems improbable that each of
these nations should have become, by a separate process, possessed
of this important art: yet those eminent scholars who have laboured
with so great success of late in elucidating the Oriental forms of
writing, have not succeeded in tracing any connexion between the
alphabetic systems of Egypt, of the Phoenicians, the Assyrians,
and the Hindoos."

And states afterwards:--

"It is plain that the use of letters was entirely unknown to the
Arian nations, to those tribes at least of the race who passed into
Europe: and that it was introduced among them in long after ages by
the Phoenicians, who claim this most important invention, and
certainly have the merit of having communicated it to the nations
of the west."

The words "those tribes at least," are scarcely sufficient to remove the
inconsistency.

A fourth division comprehends those various barbarous nations of unknown
origin which occupied the territories surrounding the Indo-European
race, and were for the most part subdued and expelled by the latter--to
this fourth division he applies