CURTISS NAVY RACER, THE AIRPLANE THAT WON THE PULITZER RACE OF 1921
U. S. ARMY DIRIGIBLE ON A TRANSCONTINENTAL FLIGHT
The most important rôles in the development of modern civilization, art, industry, and science have been played by representatives of the Nordics.
The Iberian, or Mediterranean, subspecies, ranks next in importance. The peoples of this great racial division originally occupied the countries between the northern Atlantic coast of Africa and the confines of the areas of the Nordics around the northern provinces of France. They spread down the Mediterranean and over large areas in Asia. Their skulls are long, but differ from those of the Nordics in their absolute size. Their stature is lower, and weaker than that of the Nordics, while their hair, eyes, and skin are dark or black. The Welsh, the Moors, and the early Greeks are chiefly classed with the Mediterranean group. The Carthaginians, Phœnicians, Egyptians, and Etrurians were members of it.
The roundheads comprise the Alpine subspecies. This is the strongest numerical group to-day. It is characterized by small round heads, short bodies, dark hair, and dark eyes. It is of Asiatic origin and includes the Slavs, modern Greeks, Italians, Germans, Austrians, Swiss, the pre-Nordic Irish, French, and Belgians. The first Alpine invasion of Europe began about 10,000 B. C. There were many subsequent ones through the plateaus of Asia Minor, the Balkans, and valley of the Danube. They reached England about 1800 B. C., and formed small colonies in Ireland, the descendants of which now call themselves Celts and are clearly distinguished by the characteristic Alpine indices. This race is now so well acclimatized in Europe that most of its Asiatic traces have been lost, and its round skulls and dark eyes and hair are the only reminders of its Mongolian origin.
Members of each of these three great racial groups of mankind have throughout the ages contributed to the development of the sciences and arts. The Nordics began to appear in European history as agricultural tribes, speaking Aryan languages, like Celtic and Welsh, who swept down from the north and pushed the earlier settlers back through their irresistible arms, which were made of bronze and later of iron. The earlier settlers were still furnished with arms and implements of the Stone Age.
There was a much older intellectual people than the Nordics settled in Europe. The people of this race, about whom we have learned through recent archæological researches, are known as the Cro-Magnons. They lived between 25,000 and 10,000 B. C. Their skulls were distinguished from those of the Nordics by their pronounced cheek-bones and broad faces. Their culture, as their favorable cephalic index would suggest, was of a high character. Numerous drawings and art works of theirs, which have been preserved, place them among the world's superior peoples.
Soon after the settlement of the Cro-Magnons in Europe, and their intermarriage with the earlier settlers, their physical development and stature began to decline. They were finally absorbed and destroyed by the inferior peoples among whom they dwelled. Their disappearance, like that of the ancient Greeks, who appear to have been the most intellectual people the world ever produced, shows how the upward development of human physical and intellectual qualities is constantly injured by the contacts of superior and inferior races.