APPLETONS' 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY. 



AUGUST, 1897. 



THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 

 A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY. 



(Lowell Institute Lectures, 1896.) 

 BY WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY, PH. D., 



ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ; LECTURER IN 

 ANTHROPO-GEOGRAPHY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 



VL FRANCE. PART II. 



WHY is Belgium entitled to a separate national existence 

 among the states of modern Europe ? Ireland and even 

 Wales have tenfold stronger claims to political independence on 

 the score both of race and religion. One half of this little state 

 is topographically like Holland; the other is not to be distin- 

 guished in climate, geography, or soil from Alsace-Lorraine that 

 shuttlecock among nations. Belgium is father to no national 

 speech. The Flemings can not hold common converse with their 

 fellow-countrymen, the Wallons ; for the first speak a corrupted 

 Dutch, the second an archaic French language. Nor are the 

 people more highly individualized in the anthropological sense. 

 In fact, in a study of races Belgium is not to be considered apart 

 from either northern France or southwestern Germany. It is 

 closely allied to both. Of course, even despite the lack of all 

 these elements of nationality, there is still a reason for the sepa- 

 rate political existence of the Belgians. There must have been, 

 for the sense of nationality is very intense among them. There 

 is no sign of its abatement at the present time. It has made 

 them a dominant power in Africa and elsewhere abroad. Their 

 nationality is a geographical as well as an historical product. "We 

 shall deal with that presently. In the meantime we must con- 

 sider the Belgians together with the whole population of northern 



VOL. LI. 33 



