148 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



CEPHALIC INDEX, 



'BRITISH 15LIS, 



ABOUT IEOO OBSERVATIONS ' 



the width at the malar bones is the crucial test. Measured by the 

 cephalic index — that is, the extreme breadth of the cranium ex- 

 pressed in percentage of its length from front to back — the uni- 

 formity in type is so perfect that it can not be represented by shaded 

 maps as we have heretofore been accustomed to do. "Wherever heads 

 have been measured, whether in the Arran Islands off the west coast 

 of Ireland, the Hebrides and Scottish Highlands, Wales and Corn- 

 wall, or the counties about 

 London, the results all agree 

 within a few units. These 

 figures, noted upon the lo- 

 calities where they were 

 taken, are shown upon our 

 little sketch map on this 

 page. It will be observed 

 at once that the indexes all 

 lie between 77 and 79, with 

 the possible exception of 

 parts of Scotland, where 

 they fall to 76. 



What do these dry sta- 

 tistics mean? In the first 

 place, they indicate a 

 living population in 

 which the round-headed 

 Alpine race of 

 central Europe is 

 totally lacking ; 

 an ethnic element 

 which, as we have 

 already shown in 

 our preceding ar- 

 ticles, constitutes 

 a full half of 

 the present popu- 

 lation of every state of middle western Europe — that is to say, of 

 France, Belgium, Italy, and Germany. We have already proved 

 that this Alpine race is distinctively a denizen of mountainous re- 

 gions; we christened it Alpine for that reason. It clings to the 

 upland areas of isolation with a persistency which even the upheavals 

 of the nineteenth century can not shake. Almost everywhere it 

 appears to have yielded the seacoasts to its aggressive rivals, the Teu- 

 tonic long-headed race in the north and the dolichocephalic Mediter- 

 ranean one on the south. This curious absence of the broad-headed 



