In the same way the imposing barrier of the Taurus prevented contact between the occupants of the districts lying north and south of the mountain. The significance of this range to Europeans cannot be overestimated. The mountain has proved to be the chief obstacle to the northward spread of Semitic peoples and their civilizations. Successive waves of southern invaders, invariably of Semitic descent whether highly civilized or drawn from tribes of savages, spent themselves in vain dashes against the rocky slopes. The fact is verified historically whether we consider the failure of Assyrians in antiquity, of the Saracens during Middle Ages, or of the Egyptians and Arabs led by Mehemet Ali in modern days. At present the linguistic boundary between Turkish and Arabic occurs in this mountain chain and Hogarth has expressed the fact in a realistic phrase by stating that, at an elevation of about 2,000 ft., the Arabic speech is chilled to silence. To come back to the factor of Turkey’s geographical position, we find that while this feature has generated an attracting force the shape of the land, on the other hand, promoted a constantly repellent action. We have in this situation a remarkable conflict which has exerted itself to the detriment of the inhabitants. The centripetal action of position was always reduced to a minimum by the centrifugal effects of form. The mountainous core made up by the Anatolian table-land and the western highland of Armenia was a center of dispersal of waters, and hence to a large degree of peoples. Furthermore, however much the land was a single unit with reference to the broad divisions of Asia, the fact remains that it was greatly subdivided within itself. The six main compartments into which it may be laid off have fostered totally divergent civilizations. All of these conditions were fundamentally fatal to the formation of nationality. They only favored intercontinental travel and trade. In this respect the country has been of the highest importance in the history of the eastern hemisphere, and at present commands world-wide attention.