BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1901-05-07
EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS
Their Origen and Decay.
BY R. A. van Middeldy
I Conclusion.l

1t is in Asia where man first laid bis
yoke on the strong necks of the buffalo and
the OK, where he first bestrode the horse,
tanned the wild ass, collected gazelles and
antelopes in herds and bred fhe goat from
them;-All these submissive slaves of man
still roam free and untamed in all their
primitive beanty in the mountains and
forests Of Central Asia, the reindeer is still
found ON the SUBMITS and in the valleys
of the Ural mountains, the Camel still
wanders undisturbed over the vast deserts
between Thibet and China, while the
forests TEEN with wild boars, wild cats,
jackalls, peafowl, turkeys, hens, whose an
cestors were frtS dOmesticaled by man and
have since accompanied him in his wander
ings over the globe.
Even our food supply we owe originally
to India.
The North West provinces are the only
region on the globe where corn and acheat
only by natures hand, the grape vine winds
from tree to tree 10 the forest and the bright
rays of Sourya color tbs orange, the pCm
granate, the olive, the chestnut, the coffee
berry, the sugar cane, and other gifts OF
nature, that other lands produce only with
careful cultivation.
We may we'll ask what race of physical
giants sculptured the rOcktemples of which
| have spoken; What race of intellectual
giants built the lC0nders of architecture
have pointed out, and We must now ask
what race OF demi-gods in those far remote
days, invented the systems of philosophy,
which are, to day, the nuclei of all the
hypothesis, metaphysical subteties and
theories (including the theory of ev0lrtiOn)
that have since been advanced by our modern
sages as new lnventions-How came they,
at that early stage, to invent the alphabet
and the ten numerals, with their absolute
and relative yalneS,-the most marvellous
of all inventions: Who taught them the
dimensions of our globe, the position of tie
eciptc and the soSticeS and, having no
telescopes, how could they know as they
did that that the Milky way was but an
aggregation of stars. BY what process did
they caltul Ate the solar and lunar eclpses,
the excentrlcty of tie orbits of comets and
other astronomical problems ?--They knew
Algebra aud in one of their Oldest works on
astronomy there is inserted a complete syS.
TEN Ct r;gonometry,-wh could have been
their teachers they had but one 1t
was Nature, it was Natures God
On no other hypothesis can we account
for their possession of the most perfect Ian
guage in the world, for their power of ex.
pres ing in it the Sublimest conceptions OF
the Unknown and Unknowable Cause OF
all,-for the elevation and purely OF their
moral principles, the simple beauty Of their
lyric and literary productions, as embodied
in the NedahS and other sacred writings Of
India, the mother of civilizations.
This, gentlemen, Is my anSwet to the
question regarding the origin OF past civil.
cations: The ruins that cover the earth are
those OF empires founded by the descendants
Of the Dlyinely Inspired primitive race that
made its appearance on the plateaux of
Central Asia, hundreds of centuries age; -
Spreading slowly over the rest of the globe,
under the changing conditions of climate,
food and general surroundings the race
changed, morally, intellectually, physically,
and the civilization they had brought with
them took a ditlere9t form, retaining in
many cases .fcr, yet always some traces OF
It's ongin, in the language, the traditions,
Gus ,oms and architectural constructions of
the new civilization.
The evidences of this aIe abundant, and
if the subject were not SO large We might
trace them III the ruins of other lands and
speculate on the causes Of decay of all
civilizations and examine our Cwn with a
view to ascertain of there are any signs Of
approaching decay IN that also.