550 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



Catholics of the Latin rite. From this section came chiefly those 

 Albanians who, after the death (1467) of their valiant champion, 

 George Castriota (Scanderbeg, ''Alexander the Great"), fled from 

 Turkish oppression and formed numerous settlements, especially 

 in Calabria and Sicily, and still retain their national tradi- 

 tions. 



In their original homes, located by some between the Bug 

 and the Dnieper, the Slavs have not only recovered 

 R ^ from the fierce Mongolo-Turki and Finn tornadoes, 



by which the eastern steppes were repeatedly swept 

 for over 1500 years after the building of the Great Wall, but have 

 in recent historic times displayed a prodigious power of expansion 

 second only to that of the British peoples. The Russians (Great, 

 Little, and White Russians), whose political empire now stretches 

 continuously from the Baltic to the Pacific, have already absorbed 

 nearly all the Mongol elements in East Europe, have founded 

 compact settlements in Caucasia and West Siberia, and have 

 thrown off numerous pioneer groups of colonists along all the 

 highways of trade and migration, and down the great fluvial 

 arteries between the Ob and the Amur estuary. They number 

 collectively over 100 millions, and as their domain of some 

 9 million square miles is more compact than that of the English 

 peoples, while they are themselves apparently more aggressive, 

 some thoughtful observers have feared lest an exploded "Yellow 

 Scare " may be followed by a very real Panslav terror. The 

 " terror " may come, but will subside, because, for political and 

 economic reasons which cannot here be discussed, it will be found 

 raised on a baseless fabric. 



Nor need we be detained by the controversy now in progress 

 between Sergi and Zaborowski regarding a pre- 

 historic spread of the Mediterranean race to 

 Russia 1 . The skulls from several of the old 

 Kurgans, identified by Sergi with his Mediterranean type, have 

 not been sufficiently determined as to date or cultural periods to 

 decide the question, while their dolicho shape is common both 

 to the Mediterraneans and to the proto-Aryans of the North 



1 Bui. Soc. d'Anthrop. VH. 1896. 



