Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/788

766 in the same respect, although, the last two are both Germans. It would be unwarranted to maintain that any direct relation of climate to pigmentation has been proved. The facts point, nevertheless, strongly in that direction. We do not know in precisely what way the pigmental processes are affected. Probably other environmental factors are equally important with climate. To that point we shall return in a few pages. We may rest assured at this writing that our map for Europe corroborates in a general way testimony drawn from other parts of the earth that some relation between the two exists.

It seems to be true that brunetteness holds its own more persistently over the whole of Europe than the lighter characteristics. Probably one reason why this appears to be so is because the dark traits are more striking, and hence are more apt to be observed. Yet, after making all due allowance for this fact, the relative persistency, or perhaps we might say penetrativeness, of the brunette traits seems to be indicated. Our map shows that, while in Scandinavia seldom less than one quarter of all the eyes and hair are dark, in the south the blond traits often fall below ten per cent of the total. Thus in Sardinia there are only about three per cent of all the eyes and hair which are light. The same point is shown with added force if we study the distribution of the pure blond or brunette types, and not of these traits independently. In the blondest part of Germany there are seldom less than seven per cent of pure brunette children. Among adults this would probably not represent less than fifteen per cent of pure brunettes, to say the least. As our table shows, in Scotland direct observations on adults indicate nearly a quarter of the population to be pure brunettes. On the other hand, the pure blondes become a negligible quantity long before we reach the