Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/494

476 still greater force to Morselli's generalization. Herewith is a map of its variations. Observe how Wales and Cornwall are set apart from all the rest of the island. Were the map more extensive, we should discover the Scottish Highlands, the third stronghold of the ancient Briton types, characterized by an equal infrequency of suicide. Most remarkable of all is the little light-colored area, just north of London, comprising the counties of Hertfordshire, Bedford, and Huntingdon. This district we were at great pains to emphasize in



our article upon the British Isles as a region where the physical characteristics of the pre-Teutonic invaders of the island were still represented in comparative purity. We saw that the conquering Teutons entered England from two sides, avoiding London and the impenetrable fen district, and thereby passed over this region, leaving it notably brunette in physical type to this day. Here, again, in nearly every detail of our map would seem to be a corroboration of Morselli's law. For suicide diminishes in direct proportion to the absence of Teutonic intermixture.

Divorce and suicide, which we have just discussed, will serve as examples of the mode of proof adopted for tracing a number of other social phenomena to an ethnic origin. Thus Lapouge attributes the notorious depopulation of large areas in France to the sterility incident upon intermixture between the several racial