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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



and extent. West of that line and north 

 of the Alpine system, an enormous plain, 

 broken only by the watersheds of its 

 rivers, extends to the North Sea. 



When the Christian era began, all that 

 plain was covered by forests except the 

 marshlands in the east. That plain, as 

 well as Scandinavia, peopled almost 

 wholly by Teutons, was sometimes called 

 Germania. East of that line was another 

 still more enormous plain, Sarmatia, the 

 home of the Slavs, a race almost un- 

 known. The Alps, northern Italy, a part 

 of Spain, France, and the British Islands 

 were inhabited by Celts. The centers of 

 the Greco-Latins were Greece and Italy. 



Thus, at the time of Christ the Alps 

 are the signpost of Europe, roughly 

 pointing out where the races are to be 

 found: north of the Alps, the Teutons; 

 south of the Alps, the Greco-Latins; in 

 the Alps and to the west, the Celts ; far 

 east of the Alps, little affected by them, 

 and therefore little influenced by Europe 

 and of as little influence in it, the Slavs 

 and the Finno-Ugrians. 



FAIR-HAIRED FOLKS NORTH OF THE ALPS 



Since scholars have found it difficult 

 to indicate the great races of mankind 

 and even impossible to agree as to how 

 many such races there are, it is not sur- 

 prising that they have found it still 

 harder to specify distinctive character- 

 istics of the various subdivisions or 

 minor races. This fact becomes evident 

 as one seeks to indicate the peculiar phys- 

 ical traits of the Celts, the Teutons, the 

 Slavs, and the Greco-Latins. They can be 

 described only in general terms, though 

 such terms, never exact, merely approach 

 exactness. 



The ancient Greeks applied to all fair- 

 haired peoples living north of the Alps 

 the common name Keltoi, or Celts. Later 

 these Keltoi were recognized as consist- 

 ing of two groups, shading off into each 

 other. 



The name Celt was then limited to the 

 group which lived nearest the Alps and 

 on the great western plateaus. This 

 group is also called Alpine. In general 

 its peoples were of stocky build and me- 

 dium height, their heads round, faces 



broad, eyes gray or hazel, noses rather 

 broad, complexion light, and hair light 

 brown. This is the Celtic type. 



The second group had its seat in Scan- 

 dinavia and spread out southward till it 

 mingled with the first group. Its peoples 

 were in general less vivacious than the 

 Celts, and had longer heads, longer faces, 

 narrower noses, lighter hair, blue eyes, 

 and were taller. Their type is the Teu- 

 ton, or German, or a less common term, 

 the Nordic. 



The Slavs (as Russian philologists as- 

 sert, from slava, glory, the glorious, or 

 slova, speech, one who speaks) do not 

 appear in history until about the fifth 

 century A. D. They are in general less 

 animate in appearance and facial expres- 

 sion than either the Teuton or the Celt. 



In general they are stalwart, the hair 

 and beard abundant, the hands and feet 

 small. But, however it may have been 

 thousands of years ago, there is no 

 Slavic physical type today as there was 

 and is a Teutonic and Celtic type. This 

 fact is probably due to the remarkable 

 faculty in absorbing other races which 

 the Slav possesses and to the different in- 

 fluences of the various regions in which 

 the Slav is found. Dark-complexioned 

 and light-complexioned, short and tall, 

 black-bearded, red-bearded, and yellow- 

 bearded, the Slav in physical character- 

 istics is the most cosmopolitan of men. 



The Greco-Latin in its two types, the 

 Greek and the Roman, is familiar; the 

 "dark whites" of Huxley, active, demon- 

 strative, vivacious ; in politics and admin- 

 istration, in philosophy and the arts, the 

 teacher of mankind. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF RACES SHROUDED IN 

 MYSTERY 



The beginning and infancy of any race 

 is unknown, shrouded in mystery which 

 legends confuse rather than illumine. 

 Nevertheless a record, incomplete and 

 fragmentary, of the races of Europe is 

 available for the last two thousand years. 

 This record it will be interesting to re- 

 view briefly. Otherwise we should be 

 unable to appreciate the complex situa- 

 tion in present-day Europe. 



In the year 117 the Roman Empire at- 



