294 
tails of their history without the corroboration 
of historical evidence. Many of the explana- 
tions contained in the book are certainly plaus- 
ible, and add very much to its attractiveness ; 
but I should be inclined to emphasize the ele- 
ments of uncertainty much more than the au- 
thor does. 
On the whole, Professor Ripley considers 
economic attractiveness as one of the principal 
causes that regulate the distribution of types. 
According to his theory the fertile plains were 
always subject to foreign invasion, while the 
less fertile hills contain the most ancient types. 
While in historic times, when population had 
reached a considerable density, this cause must 
have been very effective, we may doubt if it 
acted in the same manner in very early times, 
when the continent was sparsely settled, when 
agriculture was not the only means of subsist- 
ence and when dense forests and swamps, diffi- 
cult of access, or steppes that are now fertile oc- 
cupied plains. The author calls attention to the 
fact that the invasion of the Alpine type cannot 
be explained in this manner. 
I feel least in accord with Professor Ripley’s 
ready resort to mixture as an explanation of 
peculiarities of type. This view is closely con- 
nected with the interpretation of what consti- 
tutes a type or a race. I do not think the 
term ‘Races of Europe’ a fortunate one, but, 
with Gerland and Ehrenreich, I am inclined to 
reserve the term for the largest divisions of 
mankind. The differences between the three 
European types are certainly not equal in value 
to the differences between Europeans, Africans 
and Mongols; but they are subordinate to 
these. The term ‘type’ appears most appro- 
priate for the sub-divisions of each race. 
It would seem that if the author had given 
us in his work not only an analysis of what 
differentiates the various types of Europe, but 
also a description of what is common to them 
—a subject that would seem eminently proper 
in a discussion of European man—his views 
might have been somewhat modified. The im- 
portant anatomical characteristics of the race 
as a whole have found no place in his work; 
in the chapter on European origins (pp. 457 ff), 
in which he deals with the general question of 
race, only the anthropometric evidence and 
SCIENCE. 
(N.S. Vou. X. No. 244. 
pigmentation are treated. Considering the most 
generalized form of the European race as it re- 
veals itself in the child, we should be inclined 
to consider it a highly specialized form of the 
Mongoloid, type from which it departs princi- 
pally by the peculiar development of the nose 
and adjoining parts of the face and by a general 
decrease of pigmentation. On account of the 
high degree of variability; of the originally 
small distribution of this type, and of the ap- 
parent tendency of hybrids with other races to 
revert to the other parental race rather than to 
the European Race, I should be inclined to con- 
sider the European one of the latest human 
types. In early times this race was probably 
slightly specialized in a number of areas, each 
area exhibiting a considerable degree of varia- 
bility. The loss of pigmentation, and change 
in facial form, were not equally pronounced 
everywhere, so that one region would be darker 
colored or broader faced than another, although 
not by any means uniform in itself. For this 
reason the occurrence of blondes or of narrow- 
faced and elongated heads in an otherwise dark, 
broad-faced and short-haired region does not 
necessarily prove mixture. At present we have 
no means of telling how stable these types had 
become before the extensive mixture which 
certainly has taken place throughout Europe. 
For this reason it seems a vain endeavor to seek 
for individuals representing the ‘pure type,’ 
even if there had been no mixture. In his dis- 
cussion of the ‘Three European Races’ (Chap. 
VI.) Professor Ripley acknowledges the varia- 
bility without, however, discovering that it 
makes conclusions as to mixture exceedingly 
doubtful, except in very pronounced cases. 
It does not seem to me justifiable to consider 
all the individuals that are short-headed and 
brunette, although living in an area which, on 
the average, is long-headed and blonde, as be- 
longing to the Alpine type, and to explain their 
presence as due to mixture between the two 
types. They may simply represent the remoter 
variations from the long-headed blonde type. 
This question has a most important bearing 
upon the explanation of facts of social selection 
(pp. 587 ff) by the assumption of different ten- 
dencies in the two types. 
The problem can hardly be solved satisfac- 
