THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 19 



land pony and the Percheron horse are likewise classified together. 

 These abnormities are, to be sure, partly the result of artificial 

 selection by man ; but the same variation holds to a considerable 

 extent among the wild animals. 



The bodily height of a group of men is the resultant of a num- 

 ber of factors, many of which are as purely artificial as those con- 

 cerned in the domestication of animals. These causes are quite 

 as truly social or economic as they are physical or physiological. 

 Among them we may count environment, natural or artificial 

 selection, and habits of life. Beneath all of these, more funda- 

 mental than any, lies the influence of race which concerns us 

 ultimately. This is overlaid and partially obscured by a fourth 

 peculiarity manifested as a result of the sportiveness of Nature, 

 whereby a large number of variations are due to chance, seem- 

 ingly not caused by any distinct influences whatever. By scien- 

 tific analysis we may eliminate this last factor, namely, chance 

 variation. The first four causes besides race are more important 

 and deserve consideration by themselves. 



Among savages it is easy to localize the influence of environ- 

 ment, as it acts directly through limitation of the food supply. 

 In general, the extreme statures of the human species are found 

 either in regions where a naturally short race, like the Bushmen 

 of South Africa, are confined within a district of great infertility 

 like the Kalahari Desert ; or, on the other hand, where a natu- 

 rally tall race, like the Polynesians in the Pacific Ocean, enjoys 

 all the material bounties which Nature has to bestow. It is prob- 

 able that the prevalent shortness of the Eskimo and other inhab- 

 itants of the arctic regions is largely due to this factor. It is also 

 likely that the miserable people of Terra del Fuego are much 

 shorter than the Patagonians for the same reason. Scarcity or 

 uncertainty of food limits growth. Wherever the life conditions 

 in this respect become changed, in that place the influence of 

 environment soon makes itself felt in the average stature of the 

 inhabitants. Thus the Hottentots, physically of the same race as 

 the Bushmen, but inhabiting a more fertile region, and, more- 

 over, possessed of a regular food supply in their flocks and 

 herds, are appreciably taller from these causes alone. All the 

 aborigines of America seem to be subject to this same influence 

 of the fertility of their environment. In the Mississippi Valley, 

 for example, they are much taller than in the desert lands of 

 Arizona and New Mexico. In the mountains on either side of 

 the Mississippi basin, they are as a rule distinctly shorter, al- 

 though living the same life and belonging to the same race. The 

 Creeks and the Iroquois exceed the Pueblos by several inches, 

 probably because of the material bounty of their environment ; 

 and where we find a single tribe, such as the Cherokees, inhabit- 



