The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1880-01-22
The ProbabIe Cradle Of Our Race.

The most probable conjecture has
fixed the cradle of our race in that cor
neT of land which lies westward the
steep range of the Beloot Tagh mount
aims, an ofshoot of the Himalayas, and
northward from the high, barren land
of Kabul. This country, the ancient
Bactriana, is the most habitable district
to be found anywhere in Central Asia.
There the hills stretch out in gentle
slopes toward the west, and inclose fer
lille valleys, whose innumerable streams,
fed by the mountains east and south,
all go to swell the waters of the Oxus,
now called the Jihon. Further north
lies another fruitful country, watered
by the Jaxartes, separated from the first
by range of hills much inferior to
those which divide both lands from
Yarkand and Kashgar on the east, and
from Kabul on the south. Both the
great rivers empty themselves into the
sea of Aral, between which and the
Caspian, sharply cutting off the fertile
country from that sea, stretches the
Khiva desert, barren land af-
fording scanty nourishment to
the herds of wandering Turkic
tribes. There is good reason
to believe, however, that this desert did
not always exist, but that in times not
extraordinarily remote the Capsian sea,
joined to the Sea of Aral, extended
over a much larger area than it at
present covers; it is known even now
to be sinking steadily within its banks.
With such contraction of the great
sea the desert would grow by a double
process, by the laying bare its sandy
bed, and by the withdrawal of neigh
boring supply of moisture from the dry
land. So it may well have been that
the frAitful territory wherein in re-
motest ages were settled our Aryan an
cestors stretched so far west as to
border upon large inland Asiatic sea.
1t has even been conjectured that the
turning of so much fertile land into
desert was the proximate cause of those
migrations which sent the greater part
of the Aryian races westward-to peo-
pie, at last, all the countries of Europe.
The root which is common to the Eu-
ropean languages for the names of the
sea means, in the Indian and 1ranian
languages, desert; how can we ac-
count for this fact better than by
supposing that after the European ma
tions had left their early home their
brethren, who had remained behind and,
who, long afterward, separated into the
peoples of India and Persia, came to
know as a desert the district which
their fathers had once known as the
sea?-The Co11ten,p orGry ReDieoU.
acknowledge Is Power"
Some time since lady asked us the
origin of the phrase knowledge is
power" and we replied by mail that it
was attributed to Lord Bacon. She
now replies by an extract from Bulwer's 8
"My Novel" in which the expression is
quoted, accompanied by statement
that no such sentence is to be found in
all Lord Bacon's works. We saw Bull
wer's statement when the novel APP
peared in Harpe7's Magazine, and
smiled complacently over our own su-
perior knowledge, as we had traced the
| quotation to the treatise of Bacon on
sects and opinions (de Hgresiis), where
it occurs in parenthesis, and reads,
nam etT0SG scie1ata potest1s est" Bull
wer and others naturally looked for the
thought in Bacon's Advancement OF
Learning" and, not finding anything
like it there, gave up the search. In
the connection, Bacon is describing a
sect which held peculiar views on the
subject of predestination. He says that
they give wider limits to the knowledge
than to the power of God (implying
that He may foreknow acts without nee
essarily preordaining them), or, rather
they restrict bis power of doing more
than His power of knowing, "for knowl
edge itself is power" This does mol
mean that knowledge confers power
but that the capacity to know may be
termed power.-Neao York journal
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