THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 201 



Scotland combines tlie isolation of the highlands with a great 

 extent of seacoast. The result has been that in including the 

 population of both areas in a single curve we find evidence of 

 impurity in the great variability of stature. 



By the second geographical method which we have described, 

 we constitute our racial types as the archseologist, from a mass of 

 broken fragments of pottery, restores the designs upon his shat- 

 tered and incomplete vases. Upon a bit of clay he discovers 

 tracings of a portion of a conventionalized human figure. A full 

 third let us say the head of Thoth or some other Egyptian deity 

 is missing. The figure is incomplete to this extent. Near by is 

 found upon another fragment a representation of the head and 

 half the body of another figure. In this case it is the legs alone 

 which lack. This originally formed no part of the same vase 

 with the first bit. It is perhaps of entirely different size and 

 color. Nevertheless, finding that the portions of the design upon 

 the two fragments bear marks of identity in motive or design, 

 data for the complete restoration of the figure of the god are at 

 hand. It matters not that from the fragments in his possession 

 the archseologist can reconstruct no single perfect form. The 

 pieces of clay will in no wise fit together. The designs, notwith- 

 standing, so complement one another that his mind is set at rest. 

 The afi&nity of the two portions is almost as clearly defined as the 

 disposition of certain chemical elements to combine in fixed pro- 

 portions; for primitive religion or ornament is not tolerant of 

 variation. 



We copy the procedure of the archseologist precisely. In one 

 population color of hair and stature gravitate toward certain defi- 

 nite combinations. Not far away, perhaps in another thousand 

 men drawn from the same locality, the same stature is found to 

 manifest an affinity for certain types of head form. It may require 

 scores of observations to detect the tendency, so slight has it be- 

 come. In still another thousand men perhaps a third combina- 

 tion is revealed. These all, however, overlap at the edges. Granted 

 that an assumption is necessary. It is allowed to the archseolo- 

 gist. Our conclusions are more certain than his, even as the laws 

 of physical combination are more immutable than those of mental 

 association. For it was merely mental conservatism which kept 

 the primitive designer of the vase from varying his patterns. 

 Here we have unchanging physical facts upon which to rely. Of 

 course, we should be glad to find all our physical traits definitely 

 associated in completeness in the same thousand recruits, were 

 it not denied to us. The archseologist would likewise rejoice 

 at the discovery of a single perfect design upon a single vase. 

 Both of us lack entities; we must be contented with afiinities 

 instead. 



