AND ITS INHABITANTS 149 



fact that they apparently migrated from Asia to America by 

 way of Bering Strait. If that Is the case, they must have spent 

 many generations in the extremely trying environment of the 

 Far North where the January temperature averages 10° F. 

 below zero, and where the winter night lasts months. Such an 

 environment may strain certain nervous types of temperament 

 until the reason totters or fails. To a man of quick, Inventive 

 mind who always wants to be up and doing, the enforced 

 monotony of the long. Icy night Is torture. His mind preys 

 upon itself and In time gives way. The type that survives is 

 the phlegmatic man who can sit idly for weeks Inside his stuffy 

 hut, and not care whether anything happens or not. When 

 they left the primitive home of man in Asia, the ancestors of 

 the Indians presumably had minds like those of their neighbors 

 who became the fathers of other races. When they emerged 

 from their long sojourn in the Far North, however, they had 

 lost some of their most valuable qualities. 



In the same way the European Nordics possess the type of 

 mind to be expected of a race that has always lived in a stimu- 

 lating climate. The Japanese show similar characteristics to 

 an almost equal degree. It is significant that although these 

 two races pushed out from central Asia in opposite directions, 

 neither was ever forced far to the north or south, and each 

 finds Its present home in one of the world's best climates. 

 Neither race, however, has evolved in a uniform climate, for 

 changes due to the Glacial Period, especially In Europe, have 

 forced them to endure repeated epochs of stress. The stress, 

 I however, was of a stimulating kind because It was apparently 

 characterized by variability and not by the monotonous uni- 

 formity of the Far North or the equator. The African 

 negroes, on the other hand, have by no means been so fortu- 

 nate. Because their migrations led them into southerly regions 

 they suffered a repressive evolution much like that of the 

 Indians. In tropical regions the energetic types unfortunately 



