512 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



we can observe among ourselves. It is, nevertheless, indisputable that, 

 compared with the races in which the Aryan element has been observed 

 in its purity, those races, especially those which have drawn largely 

 from the Semitic fountain, are incomparably more fitted to acclimatize 

 themselves, and propagate themselves in the midst of the new condi- 

 tions in which they are placed in hot countries. In order to include 

 under a more characteristic denomination those races which are only 

 slightly refractory to the morbid influences of the climate, races to 

 which we ourselves belong, I proposed, on a former occasion, to call 

 them vulnerable races. This figurative expression might serve, in the 

 domain of pathological ethnology, to designate the property which 

 those races have of going through grave alterations under the influ- 

 ence of relatively slight external causes ; and, considered in the nar- 

 rower domain of acclimatization, the facility with which, among them, 

 indisposition puts on the aspect of real illness. There is, however, a 

 very limited zone within which these vulnerable races can implant and 

 propagate themselves with comparative security. Korth America 

 holds the first place in this favorable zone. Here we see the curious 

 phenomenon of the French in Canada, the same northern French who 

 are melting like wax in the sun of Algeria, becoming, from the little 

 colony which they were in the beginning of the century, a vigorous 

 and numerous people, and lively enough to hold their own against the 

 rising tide of English immigration ; while tens and tens of thousands 

 of our countrymen, whom America receives annually at her ports, dis- 

 appear in a very short time. In Canada, the colonists of French 

 origin, animated by the most lively spirit of independence, have con- 

 stituted themselves a people apart, and the last conflict, which has 

 just closed, is a convincing proof of the tenacity of their national 

 feeling. 



Then comes the United States, with its vigorous and constantly in- 

 creasing population. However much it may be mixed, it will always 

 be Aryan at the bottom, for all the heterogeneous elements are ab- 

 sorbed, almost without leaving traces of themselves, in that immense 

 hearth of colonization, which has no parallel in history. The Eng- 

 lish have been no less happy in the settlement of Australia, a coloni- 

 zation the energetic expansion of which has not been checked except 

 toward the north, where the conditions grow unfavorable as the set- 

 tlements approach the equator. Hence it comes that, in the northern 

 part of Queensland, European colonists are not in a condition to en- 

 dure the fatigue of agricultural labor. This fact has had much to do 

 with the efforts made of late years to annex New Guinea and New 

 Britain, whence it has been proposed to draw the manual forces re- 

 quired for the tillage of the soil. 



In the South African colonies the Dutch have been solidly estab- 

 lished for some two hundred years ; and, in a few countries of South 

 America, colonies composed of peoples of various European origin have 



