20 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



spread into France through the pass of Belfort and by the 

 lower Moselle. A second, probably later and less impor- 

 tant, invasion crossed the river to reach Upper Italy and 

 Switzerland, and thence gained the valley of the Rhone. 

 Thus their migration has been from east to west. 



When the invasions came of the tall, fair dolichocephals : 

 Kymri, Gauls, Cimbrians, Burgundians, Visigoths, Franks, 

 etc., they more particularly followed a course parallel to the 

 North Sea. From an ill-determined point to the north-east 

 or north, they advanced invariably along the plains, probably 

 on account of the chariots which they always brought with 

 them. After having covered the plains of North Germany, 

 where since then their descendants have always lived, and 

 which became a second centre for emigrations, they passed 

 to the north of the Black Forest to scatter upon the Nether- 

 lands and Flanders, the valley of the Seine and that of the 

 Rhine. Thence their swarms were divided by the central 

 plateau of France, one stream being diverted into Italy, the 

 other into Spain and thence to North Africa. 



The Roman conquest scarcely, if at all, affected the 

 population of these five Departments, and it is more than 

 certain that since then no foreign element has produced any 

 result that can be traced, for all the Barbarians, as well as 

 the English, belonged to the fair race. 



In a subsequent memoir on the Anthropology of the 

 South- West of France {Mem. Soc. cP Anthrop., Paris, i., 

 3 e ser., 4 fascia, 1895) Dr. Collignon sums up his con- 

 clusions as follows : — 



Such is, after an examination of anatomical characters, 

 the distribution of the races in the south-west of our country. 

 Is it possible to draw therefrom reliable indications of what 

 it was formerly ? Regarding this we may lay down this 

 rule. When a race is well seated in a region, fixed to the 

 soil by agriculture, acclimatised by natural selection and 

 sufficiently dense, it opposes, for the most precise observa- 

 tions confirm it, an enormous resistance to absorption by 

 the new comers, whoever they may be. 



The most striking example of this stability of seated 

 races, of this force of inertia which renders them victorious, 



