542 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



British persons of genius into four classes: Fair (with blue or pre- 

 dominantly blue eyes, and light or brown hair), Mixed (with greenish, 

 blue-yellow or blue-orange eyes,* and brown hair), Dark (hazel or 

 brown eyes and brown or black hair), and a class of individuals be- 

 longing to the so-called 'Celtic type' (blue or gray eyes and more or 

 less black hair). The Fair type includes 22 per cent, cases, the Mixed 

 type 29 per cent., the Dark type 41 per cent., and the Celtic type 8 

 per cent. This result probably indicates that all the races occu- 

 pying Great Britain — however we may define or classify those races — 

 have furnished their contribution to British genius. The interesting 

 and somewhat unexpected fact which emerges is the undue predomi- 

 nance of the Dark class, a predominance by no means exclusively due to 

 Irish and Welsh influences, since very dark men of genius have been 

 furnished by the Scotch Lowlands and the English eastern counties, 

 where the populations are, on the whole, decidedly fair. This tendency 

 is the more striking when we recall that the aristocratic class shows a 

 tendency to fairness, and that our men of genius have been largely 

 drawn from that class. It would be out of place, however, to discuss 

 further the question of pigmentation. 



While British genius is thus spread in a fairly impartial manner over 

 the British Islands, and while all the chief physical types appear to 

 have contributed men of genius, there are yet certain districts which 

 have been peculiarly prolific in intellectual ability. In England there 

 are two such centers, the most important being in Norfolk and Suffolk, 

 and to some extent the adjoining counties; Norfolk stands easily at the 

 head of British counties in the production of genius.f The other 

 English center is in Devonshire and Somerset. In Scotland a belt 

 running from Aberdeen through Forfar, Fife, the country round Edin- 

 burgh, Lanark (including Glasgow), Ayr and Dumfries is especially rich 

 in genius. In Ireland the chief center (if we leave Dublin out of consid- 

 eration) is in the southeastern group of counties: Kilkenny, Tipperary, 

 Waterford and Cork; there is a less important north-eastern center in 

 Antrim and Down. 



*It may be necessary to point out that eyes vary in color from unpigmented 

 (blue) to fully pigmented (brown) ; between these two extremes we have various 

 mixtures of blue with yellow or brown. The so-called 'black' eye is really brown. 



•j- It may be noted that the founders of New England, both on the political and 

 the religious sides, were mainly produced by this East Anglian center of genius. 

 The people of this region are racially connected with the Dutch, and have always 

 combined a genius for statesmanship and an aptitude for compromise with an 

 inflexible love of independence. I may add that I have dealt more fully with 

 some of the points touched on in this section in an article on the geographical 

 distribution of British ability, shortly to appear in the Monthly Review. 



