Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/800

778 the canton of Berne extends over three regions quite distinct in character. A middle strip along the valley of the Aar as far as the city of Berne consists of an elevated, not infertile table-land, with a rolling, hilly surface. This becomes gradually more rugged, until it terminates in the high mountains of the Bernese Oberland south of Interlaken. Here in this chain we have the most elevated portion of Switzerland; and, we may add, one of the most unpropitious for agriculture or industry. The peasants hereabouts must live upon the tourist or not at all. The northern



third of Berne covers the Jura Mountains, quite high, but of such geological formation that the soil yields not ungraciously to agriculture. Thus from the economic point of view we may divide the canton into two parts, setting aside the southern third—the Oberland—as decidedly inferior to the rest. The people of this region in the ante-tourist era could not but be unfavorably affected by their material environment.

Our map shows that this economic contrast is duplicated in the anthropological sense by a considerable increase of blondness within the Oberland, which becomes more marked as the fastnesses of the mountains are approached. North of the city of Berne there are from seven to eleven per cent of pure blondes; in