446 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the country changes abruptly to a calcareous formation along the 

 south and west. The district is accounted the very poorest in all 

 France. Its soil is worthless even for grazing ; the water is bad, 

 and the climate harsh and rigorous. 



These hills of Limousin, as we pointed out in a preceding 

 paper, are, so to speak, a veritable watershed of stature as well. 

 The bridge of relative broad-headedness we have described as 

 lying along this line is but one among several peculiarities. The 

 people of these hills are among the shortest in all Europe. Im- 

 agine a community whose members are so dwarfed and stunted 

 by misery that their average stature is only about five feet two 

 inches ! Many cantons exist in which over thirty per cent of the 

 men are under five feet three inches tall ; and a few where two 

 thirds of them all are below this height, with nearly ten per cent 

 shorter than four feet eleven inches. With women shorter than 

 this by several inches, the result is frightful. Around this area 

 we find concentric circles of increasing stature as the river courses 

 are descended and the material prosperity of the people becomes 

 greater. Within it the regular diet of boiled chestnuts and bad 

 water, with a little rye or barley ; the miserable huts unlighted by 

 windows, huddled together in the deep and damp valleys ; and the 

 extreme poverty and ignorance, have produced a population in 

 which nearly a third of the men are physically unfit for military 

 service. This geographical barrier, potent enough to produce so 

 degenerate a population, lies, as we have said, exactly along the 

 boundary between the descendants of the Lemovices about Li- 

 moges and the Petrocorii about Pe*rigueux. To make it plain 

 beyond question, we have marked the stunted area upon our map 

 of cephalic index. The correspondence is exact. It also shows 

 beyond doubt that this short stature is a product of environment 

 and not of race; for our degenerate area overlies all types of 

 head form alike, whether Alpine or other. 



Here, then, is an anthropological as well as a geographical 

 boundary, separating our long-headed tribes from one another. 

 Without going into details, let it suffice to say that complexions 

 change as well. To the north and east about Limoges the blond 

 characteristics rise to an absolute majority, especially among the 

 women ; in the contrary direction, about Perigueux, the propor- 

 tion of brunettes increases considerably. In short, the general 

 association of characteristics is such as to prove that among the 

 Lemovices there is a considerable infusion of Teutonic blood. 

 They are the extreme vanguard of the Germanic invaders who 

 have come in from the northeast. That accounts at once for their 

 long-headedness. Similar to them are the populations west of 

 Bordeaux in Me*doc (vide key map). They also are remnants of 

 the same blond, tall, long-headed type ; but they have come around 



