4,55 M. A. VAN HERWERDEN 



to bring bloodgroups in relation to eugenics. A phenomenon, which one 

 might expect in isolated valleys of a mountainland proves to exist in a coun- 

 try like the Netherlands where country villages are only separated by mead- 

 ows and ditches. This is the phenomenon of inbreeding continuing during 

 centuries, which will be disturbed ere long by the modern traffic and by 

 modern ideas. There still actually exist quite neighbouring places where 

 people never intermix outside the community. We find some places scat- 

 tered in different provinces, known by Dutchmen as well as by strangers on 



3085 

 Students 



830 

 Prisoners 



Fig. 1 



549 539 



Volendam Laren-Blaricum 



Fig. 2 



account of their extremely original character. 3 There are other ones where 

 this process of inbreeding has been hardly noted by outsiders, till suddenly 

 it comes to light by the bloodgroup investigations. 



When a small group of people belonging to the same race or mixture of 

 races settles in a colony, never intermarrying with the neighbourhood, it will 

 partly depend upon the original distribution of the bloodgroup percentages 

 which result we find on a given moment, might it be centuries later. A set 



3 Local difference in stature, physiognomy, in behaviour; sometimes even in dress. 



