THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 725 



either. Three tribes or peoples of them coexist here : Letts, Jmouds 

 or Samogitians, and Lithuanians proper, as shown on our map. Con- 

 tact with the Finnic-speaking peoples north of them — Esths, Livs, 

 Tchouds, and Vods — has modified the purity of the Lettic speech con- 

 siderably. These Finns, in turn, speak a language like that of the 

 Magyars in Hungary, and the Basques, which is not European at all. 

 It is similar in structure to the primitive languages of Asia and of 

 the aborigines of America. It represents a transitional stage of 

 linguistic evolution, through which the Aryan family has probably 

 passed in earlier times. But the language of the Letto-Lithuanians, 

 while primitive in many respects, bears no relation structurally to the 

 Finnic ; it is as properly Aryan as the speech of the Slavs. 



The perfect monotony and uniformity of environment of the 

 Russian people is most clearly expressed anthropologically in their 

 head form. Our results are shown graphically, it is believed for the 

 first time, by the accompanying map of cephalic index. The pro- 

 portions of the head, as we have sought to prove in our previous 

 papers, are to-day regarded as perhaps the most indubitable test of 

 racial derivation for Europe, at least. The cephalic index is merely 

 the breadth of the head in percentage of its maximum length from 

 front to back. Thus a cephalic index of 82 means that the head 

 is -Y^Q as broad as it is long. A rise of index implies an increas- 

 ingly broad or short head. Low indexes mean long heads; high ones 

 denote a round or bullet-shaped cranium. Of course, as we must 

 reiterate, our indexes are merely the averages for great numbers of 

 individuals. They express more or less roughly the central type 

 toward which the populations as a whole tends. 



Bearing in mind that the Poles and Letto-Lithuanians along the 

 Baltic Sea are not Russians properly, and excluding, of course, the 

 Tatars of the Crimea, a moment's consideration of our map * shows 

 at once a great similarity of head form prevailing all over Europe 

 from the Carpathian Mountains east and north. The cephalic index 

 oscillates but two or three points about a center of 82. This 

 is about the head form of the northwestern French; appreciably 



* Our data for this map may be found mainly in the original and excellent compilation 

 of Niederle, 1896 a, pp. 54-57. Additional material of great value, especially from iinpul)- 

 lished sources, is given in Deniker, 1897 and 1898 a ; while his work, announced in cxtenso 

 (1898 b), promises to give the most notable results. An especial feature will be his map 

 of the cephalic index of Europe, prepared through the munificence of Prince Roland 

 Bonaparte. It will be a contribution unsurpassed for comprehensiveness. We had, prior to 

 the knowledge of these, independently collected data from the original sources, published 

 in L' Anthropologic, vol. vii, 1896, p. 513, in part; but these later authorities agree so per- 

 fectly with our own observations, that reference to them is sufficient. We can only add 

 certain unpublished data on the Magyars from Dr. Janko, of Buda-Pesth ; Talko-Hryncewicz's 

 (1897) recent observations in Podolia; Varobdev on the population of Great Russia; etc. 



