Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/641

Rh the one spot in France where there was evidence in the place names of a retrogression of the Basque speech before the French. The light-dotted line shows the former boundary. It is the one French-speaking canton, with nearly a quarter of the population of the Basque facial type. The exception proves the rule. Some relation between language and racial type is proved beyond a doubt.

Another significant fact is illustrated by this map. It appears that instead of being refugees isolated in the recesses of the Pyrenees, the Basque physical type is really most frequent in the foothills and open plains along the base of the mountains.



In order to emphasize this point we have indicated the lay of the land upon our map by means of the five-hundred-meter contour line of elevation above the sea. It shows that in the Basque country the mountains are much narrower than farther to the east. The Pyrenees, in fact, dwindle away in height down to the seacoast. The only canton in the mountains proper with upward of half the population of the Basque facial type lies at the famous pass of Roncevaux. At this point the contour line sweeps far south, well toward the frontier. Of the three cantons with the maximum frequency of triangular faces among conscripts. Dr. Collignon found two and a half to be outside the mountains proper. The area of their extension is shaped like a fan, spreading out toward the plain of Béarn. The two wings of the fan are the cantons which form the core of the ethnic group. This