THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 439 



nificance of the division is, to put it in Dr. Beddoe's words, that 

 " the Walloons and their hilly, wooded country are a Belgic cliff 

 against which the tide of advancing Germanism has beaten with 

 small effect, while it has swept with comparatively little resist- 

 ance over the lowlands of Flanders and Alsace, and penetrated 

 into Normandy and Lorraine." Had it not been for this geo- 

 graphical area of isolation, political boundaries would have been 

 very different from those of to-day. Belgium is a piece of pie- 

 shaped stop-gap between France and Germany. Being inter- 

 nationally neutralized in the military sense, it covers the main 

 line of contact between the two powerful neighbors the plains 

 of Flanders. This is, in the eyes of the natural scientist, its main 

 excuse for separate existence as a political entity. The Franco- 

 German hatred is nothing but a family quarrel after all from our 

 point of view. It is a reality, nevertheless, for historians. The 

 only country whose population is really homogeneous is the tiny 

 kingdom of Luxemburg in the very center of the plateau, scarcely 

 more than a dot on the map. It deserves its independence for a 

 like reason with Belgium. Were Alsace-Lorraine also a neutral- 

 ized and separate kingdom, the prices of European government 

 bonds would be considerably higher than they are to day. 



Let us now return to France again. We have still to cover 

 the most interesting part of all in many ways. Caesar's third 

 division of Gaul, from the Loire River southwest to the Pyrenees, 

 was inhabited, as he tells us, by the Aquitani. Strabo adds that 

 these people were akin to the Iberians of Spain, both in customs 

 and race. Detailed study, however, reveals a population far less 

 homogeneous than these statements of the ancients imply. 



A glance at the map of the physical geography of France, on 

 page 435, shows that this southwestern section is centered in the 

 broad, fertile valley of the Garonne. From Bordeaux in every 

 direction spreads one of the most productive regions in France, 

 favored alike in soil and in climate. Ascending the river valley, it 

 narrows gradually until we reach a low pass, leading over toward 

 the Mediterranean. This little axis of fertility, along which will 

 run the projected canal to unite the two seacoasts of France, divides 

 the plateaux of Auvergne from the highlands which lie along the 

 Pyrenees. In this latter region fertility decreases as we approach 

 the Spanish frontier in proportion to the increase in altitude, 

 although most of the region is fairly capable of supporting a con- 

 siderable population. The only extensive area which is extremely 

 unfavorable in character is the seacoast department of Landes, 

 along the Bay of Biscay south of Bordeaux. This region is a vast 

 sandy plain, but little raised above the sea level. It is a flat dis- 

 trict underlaid by an impermeable clay subsoil, which is, except 



