Chapter VI Part One

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE EUROPEAN RACES IN EUROPE

THE British Isles seem to be nowhere so fair as north-west Germany, nowhere so dark as the south of France. The fairness of the population diminishes on the whole in the direction north-east to south-west. The whole area in England south of the Liverpool-Manchester line, and west of 2° W. -- that is roughly, of a line from Manchester to Bournemouth -- is relatively dark. Within this area only Wiltshire and east Somerset are somewhat fairer; Cornwall and the southern half of Wales are darkest. The counties of Northampton, Huntingdon, Bedford, Buckingham, and Hertford, lying in the middle of England, are dark. Relatively dark, too, is the mountainous part of Scotland south of the Caledonian Canal (northern Scotland is relatively pure Nordic); Inverness, Argyll, and southern Scotland west of a line from Glasgow to Carlisle are particularly dark. Ireland belongs to the somewhat darker districts of the British Isles, with the exception of Counties Limerick and Tipperary. Darkest of all is the south (Kerry, Cork, Waterford), and the west and north (Connaught and Ulster). The western part of County Galway in Connaught is (according to Beddoe) strongly Mediterranean.

The darkness of these districts in the British Isles arises from Mediterranean and Alpine blood. Of Dinaric blood there is hardly any perceptible trace in the British Isles; there is a somewhat stronger strain in Cornwall, Merionethshire, Cumberland, and especially in the district round the Firth of Forth, where 25 per cent. of the people are brachycephalic.¹ Cornwall seems to be predominantly Mediterranean; its people, too (owing to a strain of the Oriental race since the time of the Phoenician voyages to southern England?), are said often to show features calling to mind a 'Semitic' type of face.² Wales would seem to have a relatively more obvious strain of Alpine blood, so also Devon and the western part of Somerset. The above-mentioned inland counties of England seem to have a fairly strong Alpine mixture. The Chilterns between Oxford and Cambridge, however, show a considerable Mediterranean strain. Alpine elements seem fairly frequent in north-west Ireland, western Scotland, and on the outer Hebrides. It is Ireland, however, that seems to have the strongest Mediterranean mixture; the great likeness between the Irish and the Spanish has often been pointed out.³

The rather lower cephalic index and the high facial index all over the British Isles -- above all, in southern England and in Ireland -- point, in any case, to both the Nordic and the Mediterranean race. A distribution may perhaps be made as follows: the mountainous west of Scotland shows a Mediterranean-Alpine-Nordic mixture, the Nordic race being, it would seem, almost wholly confined to the upper classes; Wales, Dorset, Devon, and west Somerset, and north-west Ireland show an Alpine-Nordic-Mediterranean mixture; in Wales only the old land-owning families are said to have a Nordic look;⁴ Cornwall and Ireland (except the north-west) show a Mediterranean-Nordic or Nordic-Mediterranean mixture. The Shetlands are of Nordic race, so are the Hebrides (with a light strain of the Alpine). On Long Island not so long ago a dark-haired man was looked on with some suspicion. Taking the whole of the British Isles, including the districts which were above called dark, the Nordic strain must not be underestimated; we may adopt the following proportions for these islands: Nordic blood, 55 to 60 per cent.; Mediterranean, 30 per cent.; Alpine, 10 per cent.

What is characteristic and as yet not fully explained is the high average stature in the British Isles, including the darker areas. Have we here peculiar conditions of selection? Has the mixture of races (as has been sometimes noted) raised the height (for a time) of the mixed offspring? The more Nordic section in England seems to have kept itself purer than the same section in Germany.

In France there lies an area of predominantly Nordic race from the north, where it stretches from the coast down to Champagne, south of the mainly Alpine Ardennes, right through the centre to near Limoges, with a continuous decrease of Nordic blood. The Alpine race breaks into this area at one place -- from the Morvan Mountains to near Orléans. The coast of Normandy shows a marked predominance of the Nordic race, as also the coast-line of Brittany, which away from it is mainly Alpine. In France the whole of the east seems to be predominantly Alpine, with, however, a somewhat Dinaric strain in the Vosges district.

The Alpine predominance, but always with a Dinaric strain, is particularly to be seen at the greater heights -- the Langres Plateau, the Morvan Mountains, the Côte-d'Or, and above all, Auvergne and the Cevennes, from which an Alpine strain stretches south-west to near the Pyrenees. The Alpine districts of France are Alpine-Dinaric; Savoy seems to show a strong Alpine predominance. The inhabitants of Auvergne and those of Brittany are, according to French observers, remarkably alike; Topinard in Brittany met with persons whom he found quite 'Asiatic' (the inhabitants of the town of Pont l'Abbé, in southern Brittany, had already been compared with 'Mongols').

Predominantly Mediterranean are the coast-line of the Mediterranean Sea, the lower and middle reaches of the Rhône, and the Saône valley (to a certain extent) perhaps up to Chalons. The south-west coast of France, too, would seem to be predominantly Mediterranean to a point north of the Gironde; this seems to be strikingly so in Médoc, and in the Saintonge. A certain mixture of the Mediterranean, however, must be posited for the whole of France, and for Belgium, and for Flanders, too. Around Périgueux there lies a district of remarkable dolichocephaly, where broad-faced dolichocephalic skulls seem not to be rare; this district Ripley would assign to the palaeolithic race of Crô-magnon. I, however, suspect a heavier strain of the Mediterranean race. Ploetz⁵ reckons the proportion of Nordic blood in France at about 25 per cent., the Alpine and the Dinaric together at about 50 per cent., the Mediterranean at about 25 per cent.

Belgium in its Walloon section is predominantly Alpine, but here and there, especially in certain quarters of Brussels, clear traces of a certain Mediterranean strain are said to be preserved, going back to prehistoric populations, and also to the Spanish occupation. The Flanders part of Belgium is predominantly Nordic, with a considerable Alpine, and less of a Mediterranean, strain. The Flanders-Walloon language boundary is also a sharp line between the predominantly Nordic and the predominantly Alpine race.

The German-speaking area has been described by me in detail in the Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes, and several ethnographical maps are there given. Only a short survey, therefore, will here be made. North-west Germany and north Holland, especially where the Lower Saxon dialect is spoken, are seen clearly to be the regions where the Nordic race is most strongly predominant. Starting from here, the Nordic strain grows weaker as we go south, south-west, and east. East of the Oder we can no longer (except for the Baltic coast to about the Vistula) speak of a predominance of the Nordic race, nor south of the Main (except for a southward movement of Nordic blood along the larger river valleys).

North-east Germany, particularly East Prussia, shows itself as the region where the East Baltic strain is strongest; but there is nothing like an East Baltic predominance. This race is found entering as an element all over the east of the German-speaking area, and particularly in Saxony and Lower Austria. Westward of a line drawn from about Kiel to Innsbruck⁶ perhaps but little of the East Baltic strain is to be seen. But, judging from portraits of the inhabitants, I should be inclined to suspect a certain East Baltic strain, too, in Holland, whose origin, indeed, it will not be easy to determine.

It is the whole region of the Bavarian dialect which shows the strongest element of Dinaric race. In south Bavaria and Austria what we find is a predominance of this race -- a predominance which grows more and more decided as we near the south-eastern boundary of the German-speaking area. But strains of Dinaric blood reach from these regions as far as the west of the German-speaking area; while in eastern Switzerland, in the Hotzenwald (south Baden), and in the Vosges (Alsace) we seem even to find once again a predominance of the Dinaric race. Dinaric blood hardly goes north of the line of the Main.⁷

South-west Germany shows the strongest strain of Alpine blood; indeed, in the Black Forest, in western Switzerland, in the more mountainous parts of Württemberg, and in the midlands of Bavaria there is a certain preponderance of Alpine blood. This blood, whether as a weaker or as a stronger element, is found distributed over the whole German-speaking area; it is particularly strong along the German-French language boundary, and in Upper Silesia.