Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/747

Rh that vast army of Teutonic invaders which all through the historic period and probably since a very early time has poured over the Alps and out into the rich valley of the Po? Where are those gigantic, tawny-haired barbarians described by the ancient writers who came from the far country north of the mountains? Even of late there have been many of them—Cimbri, Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Saxons, Lombards. Historians are inclined to overrate their numerical importance as an element in the present population. On the other hand many anthropologists, Virchow for example, have asserted that these barbarian invaders have completely disappeared from sight in the present population. Truth lies intermediate between the two. It is, of course, probable that ancient writers exaggerated the numbers in the immigrant hordes. Modern scholars estimate their numbers to be relatively small. Thus Zampa holds the invasion of the Lombards to have been the most considerable numerically, although their forces did not probably exceed sixty thousand, followed perhaps by twenty thousand Saxons. Eighty thousand immigrants in the most thickly settled area in ancient Europe surely would not have diluted the population very greatly. We can not expect too much evidence in this direction consequently, although there certainly is some. The relative purity of the Piedmont Alpine type compared with that of Veneto is probably to be ascribed to its greater inaccessibility to these Teutons. Wherever any of the historic passes debouch upon the plain of the Po there we find some disturbance of the normal relations of physical traits one to another; as, for example, at Como, near Verona, and at the mouth of the Brenner in Veneto. The clearest indubitable case of Teutonic intermixture is in the population of Lombardy about Milan. Here, it will be observed on our maps, is a distinct increase of stature; the people are at the same time relatively blond. The extreme broad-headedness of Piedmont and Veneto is moderated. Everything points to an appreciable Teutonic blond. This is as it should be. Every invading host would naturally gravitate toward Milan. It is at the focus of all roads over the mountains. Ratzel, in his Anthropo-Geographie, has contrasted the influence exerted by the trend of the valleys on the different slopes of the Alps. Whereas in France they all diverge, spraying the invaders upon the quiescent population; in Italy all streams seem to concentrate upon Lombardy. The ethnic consequences are apparent there, perhaps for this reason.