INTRODUCTION 13 



prehistoric ages, a tall, fair-haired, long-skulled, blue- 

 or grey-eyed people, which may be known collectively 

 as the Germanic, Teutonic or Northern race. 



It is immaterial to our present purpose to enquire 

 whether the first-named short dark race were indeed 

 offshoots of some original North African population, 

 which had found its way across the Mediterranean Sea, 

 and whether the Northern race is to be regarded 

 ultimately as a separate development or as an im- 

 memorial modification of the Mediterranean people, 

 created by isolation, environment, or natural or 

 artificial selection in the colder regions of Europe. 



From the earliest dawn of civilization, these two 

 races have been coexistent, and intermingled at their 

 lines of contact. They differ alike in bodily and 

 mental qualities, and have made and are making 

 history by their actions and interactions. 



Between the homes of these two races comes a 

 wedge-shaped area of upland central Europe, stretch- 

 ing from the Auvergne and the Cevennes in France 

 through Switzerland and Austria towards the Balkan 

 peninsula and the islands of the ^Egean Sea, and 

 beyond again into Asia Minor, Armenia and parts of 

 Palestine. This region is inhabited partially by the 

 so-called Alpine race, round-skulled and broad-headed, 

 and intermediate in stature and colouring of hair and 

 eyes between the other two. Men of this race, which 

 penetrated slowly down the Rhine valley into the Low 

 Countries, reached Great Britain, but are not found 

 in Ireland. The special characteristic of these people 

 is the decidedly Asiatic affinities which they display, 

 and probably we shall not be far wrong in regarding 

 them as the result of a slow infiltration from the East. 



