Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/755

Rh Is it not probable that the same flood of expanding population from the north which submerged these districts may have traversed the Apennines and overflowed both Etruria and Umbria? The so-called Etruscan historic invasion may have been merely an incident in this great demographic event. This internal origin for the Etruscan race is rendered all the more probable by other evidence close at hand. All the chief cities were well inland. None were on the coast, where Greek or Phœnician invaders by sea would most likely have located. The Etruscans, in fact, seem to have been quite ignorant of the art of navigation; and, finally, the testimony of place names points to the Alps as a point of initial dispersion, as Canon Taylor has shown.

Middle Italy south of Umbria has little of special interest to offer. It is merely intermediate between north and south. To make this transition clear, compare the portrait on preceding page with that of our pure Alpine type on page 725 and with the pure Mediterranean type on this page. Owing to the late Abyssinian war so many of the Calabrians and Sardinians in the south were in the field that it was impossible to procure photographs of these racial types. They are quite similar, however, in head form to those which prevail in Tunis. For all practical purposes this African will do as well. Notice that the breadth of forehead and the roundness of face in our medium type stand between the extremes on either side. In pigmentation and stature the same thing is true. Little by little as we go south the Alpine blonde is eliminated until we reach the Mediterranean race in all its purity.

The southern part of the Italian Peninsula is to-day the seat of a Mediterranean population of remarkably pure ethnic descent. The peasants are very long-headed, strongly brunette, and almost diminutive in stature. Especially is this true in the mountains of Calabria, where geographical isolation is at an extreme. Along the coasts we find little points of contact with invaders by sea. Apulia (see map of geography) especially contains many foreign colonies. Some of these are of interest as coming from the extremely broadheaded country east of the Adriatic. So persistently have these