770 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



competition has come to a focus. The population is exceedingly 

 mixed. I have seen men of the purest Italian type speaking the 

 German tongue ; and at Botzen blond Teutons who made use of 

 good Italian. Despite this circumstance of racial intermixture, 

 there are within the Tyrol at the same time a number of areas of 

 isolation which possess very marked individuality. We thus 

 have the sharpest contrasts between mixed and pure populations. 

 The Oetztal Alps, in the very center of the country, are as inac- 

 cessible as any part of Europe. So rugged is this latter district 

 that the dialects differ from valley to valley, and the customs and 

 social institutions as well. 



Turning now to the anthropological map of this region, based 

 upon a measurement of over twelve thousand skulls, it will be 

 found that in nearly every case the broad heads become numer- 

 ous in direct proportion to the increase in altitude. In other 

 words, the broad open valleys leading out toward the great river 

 systems of Europe are relatively dolichocephalic ; while the side 

 branches in the Oetztal Alps, isolated from foreign influences, 

 show a marked preponderance of round-headedness. Thus in the 

 Stanzerthal and the valley of the Schnals, indicated upon our map 

 by the solid black tint, are two of the broadest-headed spots in 

 the world. Over seventy per cent of all the heads measured 

 from these two districts had indices above 85. These both lie, 

 it will be observed, well off the main line of travel, either by the 

 Inn Valley or over the Brenner. At their outlets they contain 

 many heads of medium breadth, but these become less frequent 

 as we penetrate the highlands. Like them are nearly all the side 

 valleys in this part of the Alps. So closely, indeed, does this 

 physical trait follow the topography that Ranke of Munich, as 

 we have already said, has endeavored to connect the broad-head- 

 edness and altitude as cause and effect. For us the true explana- 

 tion of this phenomenon is entirely racial. It is a product of 

 genuine social selection. The two great branches of narrow- 

 headedness, the blond Teuton at the north and the Mediterranean 

 at the south with dark eyes and hair, have invaded the Alps all 

 the way from France to the Balkan states. At the time of their 

 coming a broad-headed population, as it would appear, occupied 

 the whole mountain chain. The result is that to-day its main 

 peculiarity has become attenuated exactly in proportion to the 

 degree to which it has been exposed to racial intermixture with 

 the newcomers. 



Here is an example, then, of purely human stratification. The 

 Alpine type has been overlaid by the newcomers, or else has been 

 gradually driven up and back into the areas of isolation. Those 

 who remained along the great routes of travel have been swamped 

 in a flood of foreign intermixture. The only exceptions to the 



