Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-08-17
Reasonable Map
Revision Urged.

| To the Editor of The Star:
A reasonable reformation of the maps
| of Asia and Europe is imperstively re-
| uuired by the increasingly incoherent
| and chaotic conditions of the political
and racial world.
Continental solidarity OF the states
and peoples of what's presently COM
| pretended in the word Asia is quite
as impossible today as it was anclently
when the Levant was European. lie,
Greek, and later, Greek and Roman
and most of the earths mightiest land
mass was non -existent TO the west.
Excepting the Semitic races most OF
the people inhabiting the Asia known to
the ancients were of Aryan descent
Indians, Persians and Armenians, cousins
of each nation of Europe today ex-
eepting the Hungsrians, Firms and
Turks, the original habitatS of the first
and last of whom were at the frontiers
of China.
Any proposal of doctrine for the
presently recognized continent of Asia
analogous to the American continental
doctrine is and must be chimerical for
the reason that Western Asia, geographic
cally is as European as 1t is Asiatlc, and
politically and economically is consider
ably less identified with Asia than with
Europe. While any line of demarcation
separating the two continents must be
artificial the frontier can be so arranged
as TO be less unscientific.
or prime concern are the political
problems, which are so complicated that
they may never be simplfied while the
existing irrational map of Asia continues
to be accepted in contradiction Of the
most vital geographical. racial and
economic considerations.
India is, in each Specification of the
word. a continent, and is as much
entitled to be called such as is Europe,
possessing natural boundaries better
defined in fact, than are now represented
as separating Asia from Europe.
The boundary separating Asia from
Europe would increase in scientific arti-
culation if, instead of terminating at
the Caspian Sea, it were continued to the
Arabian Sea, just east of the Persian
! Gulf. Whether the boundary ought to
include in Europe with Persia the lands
of the once celebrated city states Of
Samarkand and Khiva the govern
ments most interested and the learned
geographical societies could best deter
mine The civilization of these states,
which constituted a pharos for Europe
in the Dark Ages, was Arabic and the
! foundation of the Arabs culture, dis
tinguished from their religion, was
Greek. The regions most comprehended
as the Asia of today began their rela-
lions with the West in the person and
armies of Genghis Khan, who extin-
guished the glory of those city states,
and his heirs sought to make Russia
satrapy and India their paradise. Re-
treating from the predatory Mongols, the
| Turks finally went against and acquired.
first, the Levantine lands of, and, sub
sequently, the Byzantine Empire, con-
quest that precipitated Greek scholars
from Constantinople, who found refuge
in Italy, and by their contribution of the
Greek classics, hitherto unknown to
Western Europe since Rome's decline,
prepared the Latin scholars of Europe
for the Renaissance.
India, as a distinct continent, would
be articulate and comprehensive; as an
annex of Asia, from which its race and
land are equally separated, India is
inarticulate and increases the COM
plexity of Asiatic pretensions and dis
putes. It's interests are those of an entity,
a continent of itself, and India, with it,
racial and geographic definitions can