14 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



low statures flourish equally well on the Liassic and Cre- 

 taceous calcareous beds of Sarladais and Riberacois. 



The only plausible explanation is the social condition, 

 and in this case it is summed up in the expressive French 

 term la misere. The steep slopes and barren soil only 

 produce poor cereals, rye, barley and buckwheat. The 

 natives live on these and on milk and chestnuts. Communi- 

 cation is difficult ; no great tillage as in the fertile valleys 

 of the Vienne and Gartempe, none of the larger industries 

 that enrich a people. " In the cantons of Vigeois, Uzerche 

 and Treignac in Correze " writes M. Vacher, "the popula- 

 tion is settled in confined valleys, in deep gorges receiving 

 little light and air, with an impermeable subsoil and marshy 

 ground." In a poor country the most elementary hygiene 

 is unknown, the death rate is raised and organic defects are 

 more frequent than elsewhere. One of the more direct 

 corollaries of misery is ignorance. In many other parts of 

 France, as in the Hautes-Alpes and Sologne, poverty 

 is allied with ignorance and results in the degeneration of 

 the race. 



THE NASAL INDEX. 



The nasal index is the ratio of the breadth of the wings 

 of the nose to its length, the latter being measured from 

 the root of the nose to where the septum passes into the 

 upper lip. The narrow noses (leptorhines) are those 

 with an index below 70 ; the mesorhines range from 70 to 

 85 ; while the broad noses (platyrhines) are those above 85. 



The mean nasal index is 68 - 8, but the individual range 

 is enormous, 49*9 to 96 '4, that is more than 46 units. As 

 a whole the mesorhine indices, i.e., those over 70 are 

 massed in the centre of the five Departments. 



This distribution follows in the main that of the stature. 

 But why ? Simply in accordance with a law previously 

 thus formulated by Collignon : "In a given race, leptorhiny 

 is in direct relation to stature ; the higher this is raised the 

 longer the nose, the lower the height the more the nose 

 tends to mesorhiny 'V 



1 " Etude anthropometrique elementaire des principales races de 

 France." Bull. Soc. d'Anthrop. Paris, 1883, p. 508. 



