444 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



whose racial affinity we know nothing. On the west dwelt the 

 San tones by the present city of Saintes (ancient Saintonge). The 

 city of Pe*rigueux, which gave its name to the ancient province of 

 Pe"rigord, marks the territory of the Petrocorii of Roman times. 

 The province of Limousin to the northeast of it was the home of 

 the Lemovices, with their capital at the modern city of Limoges. 

 Around the ancient city at Bordeaux lay the Bituriges and 

 their allies the Medulli (Me*doc). Along the east lay the Ar- 

 vergni, whence the name Auvergne ; together with a number of 

 minor tribes, such as the Cadurci, giving name to the district of 

 Quercy to-day. Unless the population has shifted extensively, 

 contrary to all ethnological experience, the people whose physical 

 origin is so puzzling to us included the tribes of the Lemovices 

 and especially the Petrocorii. For these two covered the main 

 body of narrow-headedness shown upon our map, extending over 

 two thirds of the department of Dordogne, and up into Haute- 

 Vienne and Charente beyond the city of Angouleme. It appears 

 as if we had to do with two tribes whose racial origin was pro- 

 foundly different from that of all their neighbors. The frontier 

 on the southeast, between the Petrocorii and the Arverni, seems 

 to-day to have been the sharpest of all. In places there is a sudden 

 drop of over five units in cephalic index at the boundary lines. 

 This means a change of type almost as great as that indicated be- 

 tween our two portraits on a preceding page. This is especially 

 marked at the frontiers of the two modern departments of Correze 

 and Dordogne, as our " key " map shows. This racial boundary 

 finds no parallel in distinctness elsewhere in France, save between 

 the Bretons and Normans. In this present case, the people are 

 distinct because the modern boundaries coincide exactly with the 

 ancient ecclesiastical and political ones. For centuries the Ar- 

 verni in Correze have turned their backs upon the Petrocorii in 

 Pe'rigord OIL fete days, market days, at the paying of taxes, or ex- 

 amination of conscripts. This they did as serfs in the middle ages, 

 and they do it to-day as freemen when they go to the polls to vote. 

 Each has looked to its capital city for all social inspiration and 

 support. The result has been an absence of intercourse, with its 

 attendant consequences. Artificial selection has sharpened the 

 contrasts imposed in the first instance by differences of physical 

 descent. It is one of those rare cases where political boundaries 

 are competent to perpetuate and even to accentuate natural 

 peculiarities due to race. 



Let us now concentrate our attention upon these two peoples 

 clustering about the modern cities of Pe*rigueux and Limoges 

 respectively separated alike from all their neighbors by their 

 long-headedness. Closer inspection at once reveals that each of 

 these two cities is to-day the kernel of a distinct subcenter of 



