202 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



the high plateaux of Asia have undergone a further course of evolution 

 in features affecting skin, cheek-bones, nose and skull. May we not look 

 upon the very variable extra fold of the upper eyelid as a more or less 

 mechanical adaptation closely linked with the flattening of the malars ? 

 Once it had begun, it might well be developed farther by use and conse- 

 quent growth in the individual, as it is of value as a protection against glare. 



Before leaving this part of the subject it may be permissible to add 

 a few words concerning ' Mongolism ' in Western Europe. It occurs 

 sporadically in the Celtic fringe of Britain and France, as Beddoe noticed, 

 and there was little that he did not notice ! It may conceivably be there 

 because of some extension into those areas of people from North Europe 

 in early times ; the influence of Arctic cultures on the West in epipalseolithic 

 times is now generally acknowledged. But it may also be correlated with 

 some alteration of endocrine balance occurring among inbred populations, 

 for such populations are very apt to show such disturbances of balance as 

 we infer from the distribution of goitre, cretinism, &c. 



If ' Mongolism ' in the West is associated with disturbance of what 

 may be called a regional balance of development usually obtaining there, 

 and is thus sometimes, but not by any means always, associated there 

 with mental peculiarity or defect, this is no ground for arguments such as 

 have been rather frivolously advanced about fancied inferiority of Mongol 

 types generally. The regional balance of development may well be 

 different in Eastern Asia. 



To return to our broad-heads of the high plateaux of Central Asia, 

 with their dry yellow-brown skin, almost hairless bodies, and in some 

 cases flattened malars and non-prominent noses, the idea is suggested 

 that these high plateaux, for reasons some of which have been indicated, 

 became a region of evolution along the lines mentioned, and became such, 

 probably, relatively late in the spread of mankind. Around this region, 

 as the general hypothesis would lead us to expect, we usually find less 

 broad-headedness, whether we look north-east or east or south-east, though 

 south-eastwards there are, it is said, more broad-heads than in other 

 directions. Towards the east, that is, in North China, the brown pigment 

 of the skin becomes much less pronounced, but the skin remains dry and 

 to some extent yellowish, while south of latitude 30° with the stronger 

 insolation the brown pigment remains, though there is apparently less 

 extension in this direction of the tendency to flattening of the malars. 

 Towards the north there are traces of long-heads, as has already been 

 said, in the Arctic north-east ; but the Arctic north-west, towards Europe, 

 must long have remained peculiarly forbidding, and the spreads in this 

 direction are of broad-headed types with most of the accessory features, 

 including the facial flattening. Under conditions of Arctic glare the 

 pigment is, naturally, retained, and the dryness and hairlessness of the 

 skin are also characteristic. Beyond the north-east, in America, are 

 broad-heads, especially, as one would expect, on the American highlands 

 and on the Pacific side. 



These few indications concerning the great zone of the broad-heads and 

 its fringes, must suffice in a sketch of this length, and we turn from them 

 to a review of the long-heads of the north-western quadrant and of certain 

 other regions. 



