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Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/451

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THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE.
437

this physical characteristic remains as a witness of priority of title to the land.

In Belgium itself, lying on the northwestern edge of the Ardennes plateau, the contrast between the upland and the plain is so distinct, and it coincides so closely with the racial boundary between the Flemings and the Walloons, that it merits special attention. Language here follows closely in the footsteps

of race. As our three maps of the country show in detail, the Walloons in the uplands are broader-headed than the Flemings. They are distinctly shorter in stature.[1] Our map shows how much more infrequent blond types are among them than among the Flemings. It is curious to notice this Teutonism of Flanders and the Low Countries. It denotes the utter extermination of all traces of the Spaniards, despite their whilom political activities, Belgium is sharply divided, therefore, into two halves, following the topographical boundary of the plateau exactly, except in the department of Hainault, where Walloons are found in the plains. The two halves of Belgium thus indicated differ in poli-


  1. Quetelet long ago showed this. Vide Titeca, Bull. Soc. d'Anthropologie de Bruxelles, vi, 1887, p. 109. Houzé has mapped the stature in ibid., vi, 1887, p. 278.