Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/745

Rh sharp, because the mountains here are quite high and impassable, save at a few points. On the east, however, by Pesaro, where natural barriers fail, the northern element has penetrated farther to the south. It has overflowed into Umbria, Tuscany, and Marche, being there once more in possession of a congenial mountainous



habitat. The same geographical isolation which, as Symonds asserts, fostered the pietism of Assisi, has enabled this northern type to hold its own against aggression from the south. It is rather interesting to note the prevalence of the brachycephalic Alpine race in this mountainous part of Italy; for nowhere else in the peninsula proper is there any evidence of that