REVIEWS 533 



eyes which, however, are often grey, especially in Western Europe. Mr. Grant 

 maintains that if a race be forced to live outside its natural habitat, the race will 

 die out, either from too hot or too cold a climate, as the case may be, or from 

 intermarriage with an acclimatised race. He also gives many reasons why race is 

 more potent than either language or nationality, and in support of this he cites 

 several arguments. He then goes on to describe the aptitudes of the races for 

 colonising. He maintains that members of the Nordic race cannot live south of 

 the latitude of Virginia, and that the American of the colonial period is getting 

 ousted from his land by hordes of low-type foreign immigrants. 



In the second part of the book Mr. Grant begins by describing the remains 

 found of early man and also a description of the Neanderthal race and that 

 splendid race known as the Cro-Magnon. The description of the races of Europe 

 up to Roman times is then described. The history of the three main races of 

 Europe is next told, together with their place of origin and a description of the 

 nations they have formed. There is a special chapter on the Teutonic branch 

 of the Nordic race and another on the expansion of the Nordics. Two chapters 

 follow this, one dealing with the place of origin of the Nordic races, and the other 

 with those portions of the Nordic race which were and are found outside Europe. 

 He believes that the Ainus of Northern Japan are an extreme easterly extension 

 of the Proto-Nordics at an early period. Mr. Grant believes that the Mediter- 

 ranean race is superior to both the Nordic and Alpine in intellectual attainments ; 

 it is certainly superior to the latter race. Its physique, however, is much inferior. 

 The Alpine populations are, for the most part, peasants, while the Nordics are a 

 race of soldiers, sailors, adventurers, explorers, rulers, organisers, and aristocrats. 

 Chivalry, knighthood, and feudalism are traceable, for the most part, to the north. 

 Mr. Grant then concludes with a study of the Aryan languages, their origin, and 

 the Aryan language in Asia. At the end of the book are four interesting maps, 

 the first on the expansion of the Alpines, the second on the expansion of the Pre- 

 Teutonic Nordics, the third on the expansion of the Teutonic Nordics and Slavic 

 Alpines, and the last on the present distribution of races in Europe. 



C. C. Ross. 



Thrice through, the Dark Continent: a Record of Journeyings across Africa 

 during the Years 1913-16. By J. DU Plessis, B.A., B.D., Professor in the 

 Theological Seminary of the Dutch Reformed Church, Stellenbosch, South 

 Africa. [Pp. viii + 350, with 60 illustrations and maps.] (London : Long- 

 mans, Green & Co., 1917. Price 14s. net.) 



MR. DUPLESSIS is an agent of a great South African Missionary Society which is 

 strongly represented in Nyasaland. He had already travelled much in Tropical 

 Africa, partly in connection with mission work, but generally with an observant 

 eye for all phases of his environment. 



The book herewith reviewed records journeys really remarkable for their 

 extent and the relative ease with which they were carried out between 1913 and 

 the close of 1916. In those three years Mr. Duplessis visited Ashanti and much 

 of the Gold Coast, the coast of Dahome, Southern Nigeria, and the Cameroons ; 

 travelled far up into Eastern Nigeria, ascended the Benue River, and traversed 

 the region between the Benue and the Logone-Shari ; crossed the watershed of 

 the Congo, passed through Uganda, criss-crossed the Congo Forest, saw some- 

 thing of British and German East Africa, and much of the main Congo and its 

 great tributaries. He traversed Northern Rhodesia and revisited Nyasaland. 



