442 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Turn back for a moment to the map of head form on page 440, 

 and notice the curious light-tinted area in the heart of this south 

 western region. It seems to be confined to four departments, lying 

 between Limoges on the northeast and Bordeaux at the south- 



Collignon 



CEPHALIC INDEX 



SOUTHWESTERN FRANCE 



78 



79 f=| 



83H 



m 



87 



west. This little island or sink, if you please, of long-headedness 

 has for years been a puzzle to anthropologists. It is a veritable 

 outcrop of dolichocephaly close to the great body of broad-head- 

 edness which centers in Auvergne. It lies, to be sure, at the 

 southwestern extremity of that axis of fertility from Paris to 

 Bordeaux which we described in our last paper. In conformity 

 with the law of differentiation of populations which holds all 

 through the north, a long-headed people is found in the plains- 

 The trouble is that the people are altogether too extreme. The 

 general law is out-proved by it. The remoteness of this spot from 

 any other great center of long-headedness constitutes the main 

 point of interest. Such a trait ought to have been derived either 

 from the north or the south of Europe. Teutonic intermixture is 

 not a competent explanation for two reasons. In the first place, 



Annales de Geographic, Paris, 1896, pp. 156-166. Our maps are adapted from this latter 

 source. G. Lagneau, Ethnogenie des Populations du Sud-ouest de la France, in Revue 

 d'Anth., 1872, pp. 606-628, gives much interesting historical material. 



