3 
stock. After the Germans had embraced Christianity and had ceased to 
migrate towards the west and south where strong governments had grown 
up, they turned back upon these Sclavonic tribes, and in the course of 
some centuries succeeded — partly by force, partly by colonization and 
intermixture of blood, partly through the various influences of superiority 
in the arts of civilisation — in so far Germanizing their descendants as to 
make them forget that they were ever other than German. 
The same may be said of the descendants of the Borussi or Porussi 
(Prussians) who were originally a Lithuanic people, somewhat akin to the 
Sclavonians, and occupying the south-eastern shores of the Baltic. To 
them also it happened, as is often the case, that in course of time they 
forgot their Lithuanian origin and lost to a great extent their language, 
adopting German in its place. So thorough has been the process that a 
tribe not German at all in its origin has become the foremost and the 
representative nation of Germany. 
Traces, however, may easily be found, especially in the Eastern provinces of 
Posen and Prussian Poland of the non- German origin of the tribes who seized 
upon those sandy flats. In Germany at the present day two distinct types 
of cranial development exist, one a short thick and almost round head, the 
other longer and narrower, resembling that prevailing in England. The 
former is more common among the Bavarians, and the latter in Hanover 
and Friesland. It is impossible at present to say which, or whether either 
of them preceded the other. Some imagine the round-headed type to be 
Sclavonic or to belong to some unknown Indo-European race. It is 
however abundant now in Switzerland whereas we learn from tombs and 
burial-mounds that it was not so 1800 years ago. In that country it would 
seem to be a trace of the invasion of the Alemanni; but the long-headed 
type seems to have existed in Germany in the fifth century in a greater 
proportion than now. This, the speaker suggested, may be explained if we 
suppose it to have characterised the ruling, and therefore the military caste, 
which would naturally suffer more in war than the others. It is worthy of 
remark that, generally speaking, the German races are Protestant, and that 
where this is not the case history discloses some record of attempts to secure 
freedom of thought and worship which have been frustrated. In Catholic 
Belgium where Teutonic (German) tribes had settled, a desperate effort 
was made for that purpose, but in vain, against the Duke of Alva and his 
Spanish dragoons. In Austria too, all attempts to overthrow Popery 
were thwarted by a persecution long and bitter enough perfectly to 
accomplish its object. 
