THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 21 



in France save in a little spot to the southwest of this, where 

 similar conditions prevail. Here in Limousin there is a barren 

 range of low hills which lies along the dividing line between the 

 departments of Dordogne, Correze and Haute-Vienne, about half- 

 way between Pdrigueux and Limoges. The water courses on our 

 map show the location of these uplands. They extend over an 

 area about seventy-five miles long and half as wide, wherein 

 average human misery is most profound. Dense ignorance pre- 

 vails. There is more illiteracy than in any other part of France. 

 The contrast in stature, even with the low average of all the 

 surrounding region, is clearly marked by the dark tint. There 

 are sporadic bits of equal diminutiveness elsewhere to the south 

 and west, but none are so extended or so extreme. Two thirds of 

 the men are below five feet three inches in height in some of the 

 communes, and the women are three or more inches shorter even 

 than this. One man in ten is below four feet eleven inches in 

 stature. This is not due to race, for several racial types are 

 equally stunted in this way within the same area. It is primarily 

 due to generations of subjection to a harsh climate, to a soil 

 which is worthless for agriculture, to a steady diet of boiled 

 chestnuts and stagnant water, and to unsanitary dwellings in the 

 deep, narrow, and damp valleys. Still further proof may be 

 found to sho'sv that these people are not stunted by any heredi- 

 tary influence, for it has been shown that children born here, but 

 who migrate and grow up elsewhere, are normal in height ; while 

 those born elsewhere, but who are subject to this environment 

 during the growing period of youth, are proportionately dwarfed.* 

 We have referred in the preceding paragraph to another 

 similar "misery spot" to the southwest of the Limousin hills. 

 It is dotted black upon the map of Europe. The cause is here 

 the same. The department of Landes derives its name from the 

 great expanse of flat country, barely above the sea level, which 

 stretches away south of Bordeaux. There is no natural drainage 

 slope. The subsoil is an impervious clay. In the rainy season, 

 water accumulates and forms stagnant marshes, covered with 

 rank vegetation. At other times the water dries away, and the 

 vegetation dies and rots. Malaria was long the curse of the land. 

 Government works are to-day reclaiming much of it for culti- 

 vation and health, but it will be generations before the people 

 recover from the physical degeneration of the past. Influences 

 akin to these have undoubtedly been of great effect in many 

 other parts of Europe, especially in. the south of Italy, in Sardinia 

 and Spain, where the largest area of short statures in Europe 

 prevails to-day. 



* CoUignon in Memoires de la Societe d'Anthropologie, series iii, vol. i, fasc. 3, pp. '61 seq. 



