422 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



cephaly (78*8), while as regards complexion it does not 

 deviate much from the average. Conterminous with it is 

 the district of Lucca, second in order of stature, low in the 

 scale of brachycephaly (79 "8), and in colour darker than its 

 neighbours. Udine, Vicenza, Chiavari, all very high in 

 stature, all inclining to be blond, are diverse in headbreadth; 

 in the two former the heads are broad, in the latter only mode- 

 rately so. Pontremoli, Gallarate (Milan), Varese, Borgotaro 

 (south of Parma), Guastalla, Pistoja, Perugia, Civita Vecchia, 

 and the neighbourhood of Benevento (the ancient Samnium) 

 are rather fair in comparison to their neighbours. And, 

 generally speaking, the frontiers where Italy is in contact 

 with the French, the Swiss, the Slavs, furnish the largest 

 proportion of blonds. The lowest proportion is found in the 

 district of Lanusei, Sardinia, in company with the lowest 

 mean stature. 



On the whole, ethnological history, or ethnic movements 

 prior to history, furnish the only adequate explanation of 

 these eccentricities. Not that there are simply two races, 

 one in the north, tall, brachycephalic and comparatively 

 blond, and one in the south and the islands, short, long- 

 headed and very dark ; but that a type, the one we usually 

 call the Mediterranean, and having these latter character- 

 istics, does really predominate in the south, and exists in a 

 state of comparative purity in Sardinia and Calabria, while 

 in the north the broad-headed Alpine type is powerful, but 

 is almost everywhere more or less modified by or inter- 

 spersed with other types, Germanic, Slavic, or of doubtful 

 origin, to which the variations of stature and complexion 

 may probably be, in part at least, attributed. In Sicily, 

 Greek, Carthaginian and Saracenic settlements and inva- 

 sions have doubtless had considerable modifying influence. 



Dr. Livi has, however, done much in the way of in- 

 vestigation of the effects of media and surroundings on 

 physical type. 



He finds that the stature varies, on the whole, inversely 

 with the elevation of the country, and this is the case when 

 one divides the several districts into four categories, one at 

 less than 50 metres above the sea, one at from 50 to 200 



