440 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in midsummer, a great fen covered with, rank marsh grasses. 

 Without artificial drainage, it is unfit for cultivation, so that it 

 remains to-day one of the most sparsely populated sections of the 

 country. As a whole, then, the southwest of France presents the 

 extremes of economic attractiveness, at the same time being devoid 

 of those geographical barriers which elsewhere have strongly in- 

 fluenced the movements of races. 



The first impression conveyed by the general map of the 

 cephalic index for all France, in respect of this particular region 

 above described, is that here at last all correspondence between 

 the nature of the country and the character of the population 

 ceases. A wedge of the broad-headed Alpine stock centering in 

 the uplands of Auvergne pushes its way toward the southwest to 



CEPHALIC INDEX 

 FRANCE 



AND BELGIUM 



AFTER COLLIGNON AND HOUZE 



the base of the Pyrenees. This Alpine offshoot extends uninter- 

 ruptedly from the sterile plateau of Auvergne, straight across the 

 fertile plains of the Garonne and deep into the swamps and fens 

 of Landes. While the geographical trend of the country is from 

 southeast to northwest parallel to the Garonne, the population 

 seems to be striped at right angles to it namely, in the direction 



