text: " Abandoning this somewhat dreamy view Dr Prichard regards consistently with the Scriptural account the birthplace of man as being on the banks of fertilizing rivers and at a period when the world was by its vegetable and animal productions prepared for his reception and adopts three divisions as being those of which we have the earliest records; 1st the _Semitic_ or _Syro-Arabian_ inhabiting countries between Egypt and the Ganges