Homer says of them that they were a "divided people dwelling at the ends of the earth toward the setting and the rising Sun." Although it is possible at the present time to discover very many of the facts bearing upon the civilization of this ancient people, it is impossible in the present condition of human knowledge to discover when civilized life began on the earth. Whether the ancient Arabians or Ethiopians who belonged to the old Cushite race, and who are believed by many to be the most ancient people of whom we have any trace, were the first colonizers, or whether they were preceded by a still older civilization, history and tradition are alike silent; yet the fact seems to be tolerably well authenticated that this enlightened race, now nearly extinct, carried civilization to Chaldea more than seven thousand years B.C., that it colonized Egypt, engrafted its own institutions in India, colonized Phoenicia, and by its maritime and commercial enterprise, introduced civilized conditions into every quarter of the globe. Even in Peru, in Mexico, in Central America, and in the United States are evidences of the old Cushite religion and enterprise. Baldwin, commenting on the greatness of this remarkable people, says that early in the period of its colonizing enterprise, commercial greatness, and extensive empire, it established colonies in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates, which in later ages became Barbary, Egypt, and Chaldea. The ancient Cushite nation occupied Arabia and other extensive regions of Africa, India, and Western Asia to the Mediterranean. While remarking upon the vastness and antiquity of this old Cushite race, Rawlinson says that they founded most of the towns of Western Asia. The vast commercial system which formed a connecting link between the various countries of the globe, was created by this people, the great manufacturing skill and unrivalled maritime activity of the Phoenicians which extended down to the time of the Hellenes and the Romans having been a result of the irgenius. It was doubtless during the supremacy of the ancient Cushite race that a knowledge of astronomy was developed and that the arts of life were carried to a high degree of perfection. However, through the peculiar influences which were brought to bear upon human experience, this knowledge, which was bequeathed to their descendants or to the nations which they had created, was subsequently lost or practically obscured, only fragments of it having been preserved from the general ruin. Within these fragments have been preserved in India certain evidences of a profound knowledge of Nature, or of the at present unknown forces in the universe, a demonstration of which, in our own time, would probably be looked upon as a miraculous interposition of supernatural agencies.