Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/177

Rh all possible crossings of characteristics appear, proving that the population is well on the road toward homogeneity. It is especially worthy of note that blondness in some districts often takes the peculiar form of freckled skin and red hair. We in America are familiar with the two types of Irish—one thus constituted, while the other is more often compounded of the black or dark brown hair and steel-blue eyes. It seems, from everyday observation, as if this latter variety were far more common among the women in our immigrants from Ireland. A similar contrast is remarkable in Scotland. Here, in fact, in some districts red-headedness is more frequent than anywhere else in the world, rising sometimes as high as eleven per cent. Topinard has undertaken to prove in France that this phenomenon is merely a variation of blondness. At all events, his maps show that red hair is most frequent in the lightest departments. In Scotland the same rule applies, so that the contrasts between east and west still hold good. The Camerons and Erasers are as dark as the Campbells are inclined to redheadedness.

Seeking for the clew to this curious distribution of brunetteness in the British Isles, we may make use for a moment of the testimony of language. The Celtic speech is represented to-day by Gaelic or Goidelic, which is in common use in parts of Scotland and Ireland; and secondly by Kymric or Brythonic, which is spoken in Wales. It was also spoken in Cornwall until near the close of the last century, when it passed into tradition. On our map of brunetteness we have roughly indicated the present boundaries of these two branches of the Celtic spoken language. It will be noted at once that the darkest populations form the nucleus of each of the Celtic language areas which now remain, especially when we recall what we have just remarked about Cornwall. Leaving aside for the moment the question whether this in any sense implies that the original Celts were a dark people, let us be assured that the local persistence of the Celtic speech is nothing more nor less than a phenomenon of isolation to-day. The aggressive English language