Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/794

772 namely, that certain factors, either climate, economic status, or habits of life, are competent to produce appreciable changes in the color of the hair and eyes.

Since, at this point, we are venturing forth upon an uncharted sea, it behooves us to stop a moment and examine what store of argument we have on hand. Two theses we hope to have proved respecting those portions of central Europe which are characterized by the broad-headed Alpine type of population. The first is that this racial element being the most ancient, becomes relatively more frequent in the areas of isolation, where natural conditions have been least disturbed by immigrants. In the byways, the primitive inhabitant; in the highways, the marauding intruder! This principle is as old as the hills. It is certainly true of languages and customs, why not likewise of race? We shall be able to establish its verity for all parts of Europe in due time. It forms the groundwork of our socio-geographical theory. The second thesis, no less important, is that this primitive Alpine type of population normally tends to be darker in hair and eyes than the blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, and long-headed Teutonic peoples on the north; and that, on the other hand, by its grayish hazel eyes and brownish hair, this broad-headed type is to be distinguished from its more thoroughly brunette neighbor at the south. The geographical evidence afforded by our map of Europe all gives tenability to this view that the Alpine type is intermediate in the color of hair and eyes. It will serve as proof provisionally at least. In the next paper we shall discuss the matter of the association of separate traits into racial types from another point of view. We shall run up against some contradictory evidence, to be sure, but satisfactory disposition may be made of this when it appears. In the meantime we assume it to be geographically, if not indeed as yet anthropologically, proved beyond question.

What deduction is to be made from these two theses we have just outlined? The third side of our logical triangle seems to be fixed. If the areas of isolation are essentially Alpine by race, and if this ethnic type be truly intermediate in pigmentation, the byways, nooks, and corners of central Europe ought normally to be more brunette than the highways and open places all along the northern Teutonic border. Contrariwise, toward the south the indigenous undisturbed Alpine populations ought to be lighter than the heterogeneous ones, infused with Mediterranean brunette blood, if we may use the term. Since mountainous areas are less exposed to racial contagion by virtue of their infertility and unattractiveness as well as by their inaccessibility or remoteness from dense centers of population, we may express our logical inference in another way. Where the Teutonic and the Alpine racial types are in contact geographically the population of