viu.] BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 173 



riverain population of the North Sea and the eastern half 

 of the British Channel, are fair men. The fair stock 

 continues in force through Central Europe, until it is 

 lost in Central Asia. Offshoots of this stock extend 

 into Spain, Italy, and Northern India, and by way of 

 Syria and North Africa, to the Canary Islands. They 

 were known in very early times to the Chinese, and in 

 still earlier to the ancient Egyptians, as frontier tribes. 

 The Thracians were notorious for their fair hair and 

 blue eyes many centuries before our era. 



On the other hand, the dark stock predominates in 

 Southern and Western France, in Spain, along the 

 Ligurian shore, and in Western and Southern Italy; 

 in Greece, Asia, Syria, and North Africa; in Arabia, 

 Persia, Afghanistan, and Hindostan, shading gradually, 

 through all stages of darkening, into the type of the 

 modern Egyptian, or of the wild Hill-man of the 

 Dekkan. Nor is there any record of the existence of 

 a different population in all these countries. 



The extreme north of Europe, and the northern part of 

 Western Asia, are at present occupied by a Mongoloid 

 stock, and, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, 

 may be assumed to have been so peopled from a very 

 remote epoch. But, as I have said, I can find no evi- 

 dence that this stock ever took part in peopling Britain. 

 Of the three great stocks of mankind which extend from 

 the western coast of the great Eurasiatic continent to its 

 southern and eastern shores, the Mongoloids occupy a 

 vast triangle, the base of which is the whole of Eastern 

 Asia, while its apex lies in Lapland. The Melanochroi, 

 on the other hand, may be represented as a broad band 

 stretching from Ireland to Hindostan; while the Xantho- 

 chroic area lies between the two, thins out, so to speak, 

 at either end, and mingles, at its margins, with both its 

 neighbours. 



