426 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION^ 1915. 



9. THE AREA OF POLISH SPEECH. 



South of the Baltic the unbroken expanse now peopled by Ger- 

 mans merges insensibly into the western section of the great Russian 

 plain. This extensive lowland is featureless and provides no natu- 

 ral barriers bet\^'een the two empires it connects. The area of Polish 

 speech alone intervenes as a buffer product of the basin of the 

 middle Vistula. The region is a silt-covered lowland, which has 

 emerged to light subsequently to the desiccation of a system of gla- 

 cial lakes of recent geological age. It appears to have been inhabited 

 by the same branch of the Slavic race since the beginning of the 

 Christian era. It was the open country in which dearth of food and 

 the consequent inducement to migration did not exist. The develop- 

 ment of Poland rests primarily on this physical foundation. Added 

 advantages of good land and water communication with the rest of 

 the continent likewise contributed powerfully to the spread of 

 Polish power, wdiich at one time extended from the Baltic shores to 

 the coast of the Black Sea. 



The language is current at present within a quadrilateral, the 

 angles of which are determined by the Jablunka pass in the Car- 

 pathians, Zirke on the Wartha, Suwalki in the eastern Masurian 

 region and Sanok on the San. A northern extension is appended 

 to this linguistic region in the form of a narrow band which de- 

 taches itself from the main mass above Bromberg and reaches the 

 Baltic coast west of Danzig. In sum, from the Carpathians to the 

 Baltic, the valley of the Vistula constitutes both the cradle and the 

 blossoming field of Polish humanity and its institutions. In spite 

 of the remoteness of the period of their occupation of the land, 

 these children of the plains never attempted to scale mountainous 

 slopes. The solid wall of the western Carpathians between Jab- 

 lunka and Sanok, with its abrupt slopes facing the north, forms the 

 southern boundary of the country. 



This unit region in the midst of the diversity of the surface of 

 the European continent has produced a unit language in the varied 

 stock of European vernaculars. Uniformity of speech was thus the 

 result of the unifying influence of a region characterized by a 

 common physical aspect. Nevertheless, similarity of physical type 

 among all individuals speaking Polish does not exist. Marked 

 anthropological differences are found between the Poles of Russian 

 Poland and of Galicia.^ They correspond to the classification of 

 northern Slavs into two main groups, the northernmost of which 

 comprises the Poles of Russian Poland, together with 'Wliite and 



1 J. Talko-Hryncevicz, Les Polonais du Royaume de Pologne d'aprfes les donn6es anthro- 

 pologiques recueillies jusqu'a present. Bui. Int. Ac. Sc. Cracovie, Classe des Sc. Math, 

 et Nat. Bui. Sc. Nat., Juin, 1912, pp. 574-582. 



