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512 we can observe among ourselves. It is, nevertheless, indisputable that, compared with the races in which the Aryan element has been observed in its purity, those races, especially those which have drawn largely from the Semitic fountain, are incomparably more fitted to acclimatize themselves, and propagate themselves in the midst of the new conditions in which they are placed in hot countries. In order to include under a more characteristic denomination those races which are only slightly refractory to the morbid influences of the climate, races to which we ourselves belong, I proposed, on a former occasion, to call them vulnerable races. This figurative expression might serve, in the domain of pathological ethnology, to designate the property which those races have of going through grave alterations under the influence of relatively slight external causes; and, considered in the narrower domain of acclimatization, the facility with which, among them, indisposition puts on the aspect of real illness. There is, however, a very limited zone within which these vulnerable races can implant and propagate themselves with comparative security. North America holds the first place in this favorable zone. Here we see the curious phenomenon of the French in Canada, the same northern French who are melting like wax in the sun of Algeria, becoming, from the little colony which they were in the beginning of the century, a vigorous and numerous people, and lively enough to hold their own against the rising tide of English immigration; while tens and tens of thousands of our countrymen, whom America receives annually at her ports, disappear in a very short time. In Canada, the colonists of French origin, animated by the most lively spirit of independence, have constituted themselves a people apart, and the last conflict, which has just closed, is a convincing proof of the tenacity of their national feeling.

Then comes the United States, with its vigorous and constantly increasing population. However much it may be mixed, it will always be Aryan at the bottom, for all the heterogeneous elements are absorbed, almost without leaving traces of themselves, in that immense hearth of colonization, which has no parallel in history. The English have been no less happy in the settlement of Australia, a colonization the energetic expansion of which has not been checked except toward the north, where the conditions grow unfavorable as the settlements approach the equator. Hence it comes that, in the northern part of Queensland, European colonists are not in a condition to endure the fatigue of agricultural labor. This fact has had much to do with the efforts made of late years to annex New Guinea and New Britain, whence it has been proposed to draw the manual forces required for the tillage of the soil.

In the South African colonies the Dutch have been solidly established for some two hundred years; and, in a few countries of South America, colonies composed of peoples of various European origin have