In 1868 Benfey, in a preface to Fick’s work,[440] acknowledged the value of Latham’s protests, and, arguing for the first time from the type of evidence known as linguistic palæontology, advocated a European as distinguished from an Asiatic cradle, and suggested, as Latham had done earlier, the region north of the Black Sea. He was followed in 1871 by Geiger,[441] who with national pride wished to prove that the super-man had always lived in the plain of North Germany, to which, some years later, Piètrement[442] retorted by suggesting that Geiger’s arguments would apply equally well to the neighbourhood of Lake Balkash and the Ala-tau mountains. In the same year in which Geiger’s work appeared Cuno made a notable contribution to the hypothesis.[443] He contended that the original undivided Wiros were not a small clan, but must have been a numerous, nomad pastoral people, inhabiting an extensive steppe region. For the evolution of the parent tongue with its elaborate grammar a long period, several thousands of years, must have been needed, and during this time the Wiros must have moved freely over the area of the cradle, having frequent intercourse with one another, but little or none with outsiders. These conditions, he thought, could only be obtained on a vast plain, undivided by lofty mountain barriers or impassable forests; this cradle must have been in a temperate climate, tolerably uniform in character, where there would have been ample room for the growth of a numerous people. Such an area can only be found in the great plain of Northern Europe, stretching from the north of France to the Ural mountains. Further investigation has shown that much of this plain was filled with dense forests and impassable morasses, but that the open steppe begins in Russia, and extends uninterruptedly to the slopes of the Hindu Kush, with certain westward prolongations, especially the sandy heaths to the north of the Carpathians, stretching from the Russian steppe, across Galicia, to the neighbourhood of Breslau. North of this, too, is a belt of parkland, opening on to the steppe, where nomad herdsmen could drive their cattle when the grass of the steppe became burnt up. Here, it would seem, was an area which would meet the needs of the linguistic palæontologist, and it was in this region that the Aryan cradle was placed by Dr. Schrader in 1883,[444] and here it has remained without opposition until quite recently. During the last few months there has appeared the first volume of the Cambridge History of India, to which Dr. Peter Giles had contributed a chapter on the Aryans.[445] In this, in which he has repeated his suggestion that these people should in future be called Wiros, he has put forward views which differ in material respects from those hitherto held. His suggestion is, in fact, that the Aryan cradle is to be sought for in the plain of Hungary.