ORIGIN OF BLOND EUROPEANS BLOCH. 613 



that the peoples of Germany have not at all been altered by intermarriage with other 

 peoples, and that thia nation is intact, pure, like itself alone. Hence the resemblance 

 of individuals one to another, although great in number. All have fierce blue eyes, 

 reddish hair, largo stature, fit for the first onrush, but not for continuous labor and 

 toil; least of all can they stand heat and thirst, but under the influence of their climate 

 and soil they have learned well how to bear cold and hunger.' 



Julius Caesar likewise relates that the country of the (Germans) 

 Suevcs was very cold, but that notwithstanding that they were 

 accustomed to clothe themselv(>s with only a short skin which left 

 part of the body bare.^ 



It is also to be added that tidal waves often ravaged the land of 

 the Celts. Thus Ephorus (363-300 B. 0.) relates that the Celts, in 

 order to inure themselves to fearlessness, regarded tranquilly the 

 destruction of their habitations by the sea, contentedly rebuilding 

 them again, and that inundations have always clauned more victims 

 among them than war (IV, 44). 



The Cimbrians, another blond people, were, according to Florus, 

 driven out from their country by an overflow of the Baltic^ about 

 114 B. C. But Strabo, who thought only of the regular ebb and flow 

 of the ocean, does not believe m such floods, expressly rejecting them. 

 Their recurrence, however, has been witnessed in the Middle Ages 

 and in modern tunes. Thus the inundation of 1277, which gave 

 birth to Dollart at the mouth of the Ems, is said to have destroyed 

 43 parishes and to have cost 80,000 lives in Friesland; so again, the 

 great "Mandrankel" (dro\vning) of September 8, 1362, annihilated 30 

 parishes and carried away large portions of the islands of Sylt and 

 Fohr (Schleswig). The great inundation of Christmas, 1717, sub- 

 merged, according to the testimony of Arends and d'Eilker, 10,828 

 persons and 90,000 head of cattle.* 



ORIGIN OF THE RACE. 



All the blond Europeans were, then, natives of Europe itself, and 

 did not come from Central Asia. There were, to be sure, both before 

 and after the beginning of the Christian era, some blond groups in 

 Asia and in what is called Ou Sun, Ting Ling, Kiankuen, but that 

 was in the north of China, according to Chinese annals.^ Besides, 

 these blonds spoke Turkish and they disappeared by being absorbed 

 in the mass of the yellow Asiatics. 



As predecessors and ancestors of the blond stock in Europe there is 

 therefore none other to be considered than the Quaternary race of 

 Neanderthal. It is true that the anthropological characteristics of 



t Tacitus. Germania. 

 2 Caesar. Gallic War. 

 ' Florus. Epitome rerum rom.inorum. 

 •• Suess. Das Antlitz der Erde. 2 B<i. Prag, 1883-1888. 



* Klaproth. Tableauxhisloriquesdel'AsIedepuiglamonarchiedeCyrusjusqu'anos jours. P;uis. 1S26. 

 85360°— SM 1912 40 



