59? POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



here between the head form in city and country, and between the 

 upper and lower classes in the larger towns.* Several explana- 

 tions for this were possible. The direct influence of urban life 

 might conceivably have brought it about, acting through superior 

 education, habits of life, and the like. There was no psychologi- 

 cal basis for this assumption. Another tenable hypothesis was 

 that in these cities, situated, as we have endeavored to show, in 

 a land where two racial types of population were existing side by 

 side, the city for some reason exerted superior powers of attraction 

 upon the long-headed race. If this were true, then, by a combined 

 process of social and racial selection, Carlsruhe, Freiburg, Mann- 

 heim, and the other towns would be continually drawing unto 

 themselves that tall and blond Teutonic type of population which, 

 as history teaches us, has dominated social and political affairs in 

 Europe for centuries. This suggested itself as the probable solution 

 of the question; and investigations all over Europe during the last 

 five years have been directed to the further analysis of the matter. 

 This was not an entirely new discovery even for Germany; the 

 same fact had been previously noted in Wiirtemberg, that the peas- 

 antry were noticeably rounder-headed than the upper classes, f 

 Yet Ammon undoubtedly first gave detailed proof of its existence, 

 basing it upon a great number of physical measurements; and he 

 undoubtedly first recognized its profound significance for the 

 future. To him belongs the honor of the discovery of the so-called 

 u Amnion's law," that the Teutonic race betrays almost everywhere 

 a marked penchant for city life. This is all the more surprising as 

 Tacitus tells us that the ancient Germans, unlike the Italians, were 

 strongly imbued with a hatred of communal existence. We have no 

 time to give in detail all the evidence which has been accumulated 

 in favor of its validity. The fact of greater frequency of the long- 

 headed type in town populations, as compared with rural districts, 

 has been established by Lapouge in a great number of investigations 

 all through central and southern France X and in Brittany.* Col- 

 lignon, foremost authority upon the physical anthropology of 

 France, gives in his adherence to it as a general rule, finding it 

 applicable to Bordeaux and nearly all the cities of the southwest. || 

 It seems to hold true in Vienna, which with its suburbs forms a 

 little islet of Teutonic long-headedness in Austria. A In northern 

 Italy the long-headedness is quite universally more prevalent in all 



* Ammon, 1890; and 1893, p. 72. f Von Holder, 1876, p. 15. 



% Lapouge, 1894, p. 483; 1896 a, p. 401 ; 1897. Closson has presented his work most 

 acceptably to English readers. # Lapouge, 1896 b, p. 91 ; also, Muffang, 1897. 



\ 1895, pp. 123-125; see also table in 1894 b, p. 19, on Limoges. 

 A Weisbach, 1895 b, p. 77, map. 



