THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 619 



and bankrupt people under tlie sun. Vogt and De Charency 

 connected tliem directly with the American Indians, because of 

 the similarity in the structure of their language. Then De Cha- 

 rency changed his mind and derived them from Asiatic sources. 

 Sir William Betharn made them kin to the extinct Etruscans. 

 Bory de Saint- Vincent proved that they were the sole survivors 

 of the sunken continent of Atlantis ; of the type of the now 

 extinct Guanches of the Canary islands. Max Mllller gives some 

 evidence of similarity to the Lapps, the Finns, and the Bulgari- 

 ans. Others said the ancient Egyptians were related to them. 

 We have no space to mention more. Little by little opinion crys- 

 tallized, especially among the historians, about the thesis upheld 

 by Wilhelm von Humboldt, that the Basque was a survival of 

 the ancient Celt-Iberian language of Spain ; and that these people 

 were the last remnants of the ancient inhabitants of that penin- 

 sula. Pictet was the only linguistic dissident from this view, 

 holding that the Basques were of even greater antiquity ; being 

 in fact the prehistoric race type of Europe, antedating the Aryan 

 influx altogether. So much, then, for the conclusions of the phi- 

 lologists. Not very satisfactory, to be sure ! 



It will be observed that all these theories rested upon the as- 

 sumption that racial derivation could be traced by means of 

 language. A prime difficulty soon presented itself. Some thirty 

 years ago the Basque language was found to be drifting toward 

 the north, despite the apparent immobility of the people them- 

 selves. It seemed to be losing ground rapidly in Spain, with no 

 indication of doing so, rather the reverse, in France. Nor was this 

 apparently a new development. Everything denoted that it had 

 been going on for many years. The mode of proof is interesting 

 as Broca used it. There are two independent sources of evidence. 

 In the first instance the place names all over Navarra as far 

 south as the Ebro River are of Basque origin ; although the lan- 

 guage, as our map shows, does not to-day extend nearly as far. 

 This indicates that the Basque speech prevailed when the villages, 

 the mountains, and the rivers were named. No such zone of place 

 names lies outside the speech line in France, save in one canton, 

 just over the Pyrenees. There the Basque place names extend 

 out as far as the broad white line upon our sketch, shown more 

 clearly perhaps upon our other maps. The inward bend of the 

 curve of present speech at this place points to a retrogression of 

 language. Everywhere else in France the division line of place 

 names coincides very closely with that of speech. 



No less important proof that Basque is losing ground in Spain 

 but holding its own in France is at hand. Notice on the map that 

 the Spanish language is to-day in use considerably within the 

 Basque limit. In other words, there is an intermediate zone in 



