742 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Tliej may thus wander far from their original type, becoming part of 

 the local ideal of physical beauty prevalent among a primitive people. 

 Only in this way can we explain the almond eyes, flat noses, and high 

 cheek bones of tribes which by their blondness and head form betray 

 unmistakably a Finnic descent. 



One objection to our ascription of the name Finn to a long- 

 headed type is bound to arise. We must meet it squarely. If the 

 Finns are of this stock, why is all Finland relatively so broad-headed 

 as our map makes it appear? FEere is the largest single aggregation 

 of Finnic-speaking people; ought we not to judge of the original 

 type from their characteristics in this region? By no means, for 

 Finland is the refuge of a great body of aborigines driven forth from 

 Great Russia by the advent of the Slavs, just as also all along the 

 isolated peninsulas of the Baltic and in the Valdai Hills north of 

 Tver. But in Finland, in contradistinction to these other places of 

 refuge, the Finns were crowded in together against the Lapps. Espe- 

 cially in the north we see clear evidence of intermixture. The Rus- 

 sian Lapps are very much less broad-headed than their pure Scan- 

 dinavian fellows, by reason of such a cross.* Can we deny, contrari- 

 wise, that a similar rise of index in the case of the Finns must have 

 ensued for the same reason? The Karels, further removed from the 

 Lapps, are somewhat longer-headed; the Baltic Finns, being quite 

 free from their influence, are much more so. Moreover, all along the 

 southwest coast of Finland the heads are much longer. Observations 

 upon twenty-eight Finns in the lumber camps of Michigan by my 

 friend Mr. David L. Wing, yielded an average index of only 78.9, 

 while thirty-nine Swedes were two units lower. A portrait of one of 

 these Finns will be found on our page of Finnic types. Granting that 

 the infusion of Swedish blood all along this coast must be reckoned as 

 a factor, a distinct tendency to this long-headedness among the Finns 

 appears. Coupled with the long-headedness of the Cheremisse, Yo- 

 gul-Ostiaks, and others, and especially the tendency of the mongrel 

 Bashkirs to dolichoecphaly as we leave the Caspian Mongol influ- 

 ence and approach the Ural Mountains, our affirmation of an original 

 long-headedness of this type seems to be justified. 



If our original Finns are proved to be long-headed blondes, often- 

 times very tall ; if the Letto-Lithuanians, contrasted with the Russian 

 Slavs, betray the same physical tendencies; if, just across the Baltic 

 Sea, the main center of this peculiar racial combination is surely 

 located in Scandinavia; and, finally, if in every direction from the 

 Baltic Sea, whether east across Russia or south into Germany, these 

 traits vanish into the broader-headed, darker-complexioned, medium- 

 statured, and stocky Alpine (Slavo-Celtic?) type: how can we longer 



* Kelsief, 1886, and Kharuzin, 1890 b. 



