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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in the same respect, although, the last two are both Germans. It 

 would be unwarranted to maintain that any direct relation of cli- 

 mate to pigmentation has been proved. The facts point, never- 

 theless, strongly in that direction. We do not know in precisely 

 what way the pigmental processes are affected. Probably other 

 environmental factors are equally important with climate. To 

 that point we shall return in a few pages. We may rest assured 

 at this writing that our map for Europe corroborates in a general 

 way testimony drawn from other parts of the earth that some 

 relation between the two exists. 



It seems to be true that brunetteness holds its own more per- 

 sistently over the whole of Europe than the lighter characteris- 

 tics. Probably one reason why this appears to be so is because 

 the dark traits are more striking, and hence are more apt to be 

 observed. Yet, after making all due allowance for this fact, the 

 relative persistency, or perhaps we might say penetrativeness, of 

 the brunette traits seems to be indicated. Our map shows that, 

 while in Scandinavia seldom less than one quarter of all the eyes 

 and hair are dark, in the south the blond traits often fall be- 

 low ten per cent of the total. Thus in Sardinia there are only 

 about three per cent of all the eyes and hair which are light. 

 The same point is shown with added force if we study the distri- 

 bution of the pure blond or brunette types, and not of these 

 traits independently. In the blondest part of Germany there are 

 seldom less than seven per cent of pure brunette children. Among 

 adults this would probably not represent less than fifteen per cent 

 of pure brunettes, to say the least. As our table shows, in Scot- 

 land direct observations on adults indicate nearly a quarter of the 

 population to be pure brunettes. On the other hand, the pure 

 blondes become a negligible quantity long before we reach the 



Percentage of- 



