Abstract
EAST and west, as everyone knows, are merely relative terms. Elisée Reclus, in the Contemporary, traces the normal line of separation between the two halves of the ancient world which best deserve these names, considering the matter from an historical point of view. The true and natural partition between east and west of the ancient world is a transverse zone running from north to south between the Arctic Sea and the Gulf of Oram. This almost uninhabited zone begins just west of the plains of the Lower Indus, in the desert tracts of Lower Beluchistan, and ends in the barren reaches between the Obi and the Yenisei. Such a zone divides the world into two halves having continental masses of nearly equal size. The evolution of humanity was worked out differently on the two sides of this line, and the two developments are traced in the article referred to.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Science in the Magazines. Nature 50, 583–584 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/050583b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/050583b0