Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/317

Rh This little district is very distinct from the surrounding country. The landscape also is peculiar in many respects. The cottages are like the English, with hedgerows between the several plots of ground. All these outward features corroborate the anthropological testimony that this was a main settlement of the people who came over from Cornwall in the fifth century, ousted by the Anglo-Saxons. They, in fact, gave the name Brittany to the whole district. They spoke the Celtic language in all probability, but were absolutely distinct in race. They seem to have been largely Teutonic. The Saxons soon followed up the path they laid open, so that the characteristics of the present population are probably combined of all three elements. At all events, to-day the people are taller, lighter, narrower-nosed, and longer-headed than their neighbors. A similar spot of narrow-headedness appears upon our map at Lannion. The people here are, however, of dark complexion, short in stature, characterized by broad and rather flat noses. Here is probably an example of a still greater persistence in ethnic traits than about Dinan, for the facts indicate that here at Lannion, antedating even the Alpine race, is a bit of the prehistoric population which we promise to identify in the next paper.

Normandy is to-day one of the blondest parts of France. It is distinctly Teutonic in the head form of its people. In fact, the contrast between Normandy and Brittany is one of the sharpest to be found in all France. The map of cephalic index on page 293 shows the regularly increasing long-headedness as we approach the mouth of the Seine. In the Norman departments from thirty to thirty-five per cent of the hair color is dark; in the adjoining department of Cotes-du-Nord, in Brittany, the proportion of dark hair rises from forty to sixty, and in some cases even to seventy-five per cent. In stature the contrast is not quite as sharp, although the people of the seacoast appear to be distinctly taller than those far inland. The ordinary observer will be able to detect differences in the facial features. The Norman nose is high and thin; the nose of the Breton is broader, opening at the nostrils. In many minor details the differences are no less marked.

Normandy, on the whole, is an example of a complete ethnic conquest. At the same time, while a new population has come, the French language has remained unaffected, with the exception of a spot near the city of Bayeux, where the Saxons and Normans together combined to introduce a bit of the Teutonic tongue. This conquest of Normandy has taken place within historic times. It is probably part and parcel of the same movement which Teutonized the British Isles; for it appears that the Normans were the only Teutonic invaders who can historically be traced to this