192 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 



A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY. 



[Lowell Institute Lectures, 1896.) 



By WILLIAM Z. EIPLEY, Ph. D., 



ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ; LECTURER IN 

 ANTHROPO-GEOGRAPHY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 



Y. THE THREE EUROPEAN RACES. 



IT may smack of heresy to assert, in face of the teachings of all 

 our text-books on geography and history, that there is no sin- 

 gle European or white race of men ; and yet that is the plain truth 

 of the matter. No continental group of human beings with greater 

 diversities or extremes of physical type exists. That fact accounts 

 in itself for much of our advance in culture. We have already 

 shown in the preceding papers that entire communities of the 

 tallest and shortest of men as well as the longest and broadest 

 headed ones are here to be found within the confines of Europe. 

 Even in respect of the color of the skin, hair, and eyes, responsi- 

 ble more than all else for the misnomer " white race," the greatest 

 variations occur. To be sure, the several types are to-day all more 

 or less blended together by the unifying influences of civilization ; 

 there are few sharp contrasts in Europe such as those between the 

 Eskimo and the American Indian or the Malay and the Papuan 

 in other parts of the world. We have been deceived by this in 

 the past. It is high time for us to correct our ideas on the subject, 

 especially in our school and college teaching. 



Instead of a single European type there is indubitable evidence 

 of at least three distinct races, each possessed of a history of its 

 own, and each contributing something to the common product, 

 population, as we see it to-day. If this be established it does away 

 at one fell swoop with most of the current mouthings about Ar- 

 yans and pre- Aryans; and especially with such appellations as 

 the " Caucasian " or the " Indo-Germanic " race. Supposing for 

 present peace that it be allowed that the ancestors of some peoples 

 of Europe may once have been within sight of either the Caspian 

 Sea or the Himalayas, we have still left two thirds of our Euro- 

 pean races and population out of account. As yet it is too early 

 to discuss the events in the history of these races ; that will claim 

 our attention at a later time. The present task before us is to 

 establish first of all that three such racial types exist in Europe. 



The skeptic is already prepared perhaps to admit that what we 

 have said about the several physical characteristics, such as the 

 shape of the head, stature, and the like, may all be true. But he 

 will continue to doubt that these offer evidence of distinct races 

 because ordinary observation may detect such gross inconsisten- 



