5 8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



One or two points on this map deserve mention, after noting 

 the general contrast between northern and southern Germany. 

 Observe how sharp the transition from light to dark becomes all 

 around the mountainous boundaries of Bohemia. Here we pass 

 suddenly from Germanic into foreign territory; for the Bohemian 

 Czechs are truly Slavic in origin as in speech. One wonders if it 

 is purely chance that so accentuated a brunette spot occurs about 

 Prague. That is the capital city, the nucleus of the nation. As 

 for the German-speaking Austrians, they are in no wise distinguish- 

 able in pigmentation from the Slovaks, Slovenes, Czechs, or other 

 Slavic neighbors all about them. The second point which we would 

 emphasize is the striking way in which blondness seems to have 

 trickled down, so to speak, through Wlirtemberg, and even as far 

 as the Swiss frontier. We have already called attention to this in 

 a preceding article. It will bear repetition here. The Rhine Valley 

 bears no relation to it. At first sight, the infiltration seems to have 

 taken place directly across country. Closer inspection shows that 

 it coincides with other evidence derived from the study of the head 

 form in the same district. Especially noteworthy are the pecul- 

 iarities of Franconia (Franken), the southern edge of which appears 

 as the light-dotted area on our map on page 61. This Franconian 

 long-headed district extends over nearly the whole basin of the 

 Main River well into Bavaria, and, as our map shows, up along the 

 Neckar. It constitutes by far the clearest case of wholesale Teu- 

 tonic colonization south of the Baltic plain. This is probably the 

 cause of the wedge of blondness upon our large map. Histo- 

 rians tell us the Franks were Teutons, and here is where they first 

 settled. 



It is interesting to observe how this Teutonization of Franconia, 

 manifested in our map of brunette traits, tallies with geographical 

 probability. Here is just where we should be led to expect a settle- 

 ment in any case. Turn back for a moment to our map of physical 

 geography. As the invaders pushed southward, they would natu- 

 rally avoid the infertile uplands bordering Bohemia, and on the west 

 the difficult, heavily forested Rhenish plateau. Each of these wings 

 of the German upland are of a primitive geological formation, agri- 

 culturally unpropitious, especially as compared with Thuringen — 

 rugged, but well watered and kindly, as it is. Suppose our Teutonic 

 tribes to ascend the Weser and its affluents, the Fulda and Werra, or 

 perhaps the narrow gully of the Rhine to Mainz. There would be 

 little to tempt them to turn back to the wooded country, either of 

 Hesse or Thiiringen. What was more natural, however, than 

 that sedimentation should take place on reaching the fertile valley 

 of the Main? Its basin, light dotted on our map, with that of the 



