"nationality,'^ 271 



their own language, liabits, and physical characters, but, as 

 a rule, the immigrants have been merged in the mixed 

 population of the great centres of industry or been broken 

 up as they advanced west with the waves of agricultural 

 settlement. And there is an American type being evolved. 

 While the bones remain large and strongly knit, there is a 

 tendency to lose flesh. Protuberant features, such as are 

 associated with sensuous character, are reduced, and a more 

 intellectual though often somewhat stern and concentrated 

 expression is apt to be developed. It is a matter of specula- 

 tion how much is due to the dryness of the climate, and 

 what to a life in which so much depends upon individual 

 prowess in meeting the unexpected and grappling with new 

 combinations. 



It has sometimes been remarked that the characteristic 

 American type approaches in some respects to that of the 

 North American Indian, and, if we believe in the develop- 

 ment of physical characters in accordance with envu'onment, 

 this is what we might expect. The modern American is 

 only showing the early stages of that modification in a 

 certain direction, which was carried further in the case of 

 his precursors, though the original stock may have been very 

 different in the two cases. 



Another curious fact is observed in America. The people 

 who go over from Britain and the countries round the Baltic 

 thrive best in the cool temperate regions. The negroes have 

 more children, and more of these survive in the tropical parts 

 of America, Avhile the intermediate Avarm temperate climates 

 best suit the people of Southern Europe. If there were no rail- 

 ways or steamboats or even roads, as was the case in old times ^ 

 not only in America but in Europe, the different races Avould 

 not get mixed up as they now are, and there would soon 

 be a belt of white people in the northern part of America — 

 a belt of people like those who live round the Mediterranean 

 in the central part, and a negro belt in the south. 



Europe, 



Now let us turn to the old world, where the history of the 

 development of races goes back further and is more obscure. 

 In the interior of continents modification has taken place 

 so often by immigration and invasion that we have small 

 opportunity of forming an opinion as to what the result of any 

 mixture of blood would have been if it had been left long iso- 



