The Conquest of a Continent; or, The Expansion of Races in America

by Madison Grant

A few decades ago there was much talk of the English officer and the Hindu in the ranks being of the same Aryan blood, because they both spoke widely diverse forms of the great group of Aryan languages. This, of course, did not imply the slightest trace of blood relationship—the Aryan speech of the Hindu had been imposed upon him by his conquerors from the north. Such fallacies were common a generation ago.

To the eastward we find remnants of Negro types in the Malay Peninsula and in the large islands to the east as far as the Philippines. This Negroid type extends also eastward through Melanesia. From this discontinuous distribution it would appear that the Negroes and Negritos were the original population of southern Eurasia. It is probable that from this region the true Negroes migrated westward into Ethiopia.

At a date far earlier than this hypothetical migration westward, an earlier type of Negroid pushed southeast to Tasmania, which was thereafter cut off from the land mass of Australia. In Australia itself these Tasmanians were absorbed or exterminated by the later coming Australoids from whom they differed materially.

The racial tangle in Australia, Papua, and the islands of Melanesia presents great difficulties in classification, but the basic element appears to be Negro with a large admixture of later Mongoloids coming from Asia.

The next zone of human population, superimposed in many cases upon the Negroids, but south of the great central mountain ranges of Eurasia, is constituted by the Mediterranean race. This race is characterized by black, wavy hair, very dark eyes, oval face with fairly regular features, dark olive skin, relatively short stature, and a somewhat slight skeletal and muscular structure. This last character is in sharp contrast with the powerful and sturdy build of the next two races to be considered, the Alpine and the Nordic. The principal character of the Mediterranean race, however, is its long (dolichocephalic) skull. The Negroes, as we have said, have long skulls, but of quite a different type.

The range of the Mediterraneans extends from the western part of the British Isles, through Spain and along both coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, down the east coast of Africa to Somaliland. In Asia it embraces the Arabs, South Persians, most of the Hindus, with an eastward extension. In Northeast Africa and India it is strongly mixed with Negro.

Spreading everywhere throughout Europe north of the territory dominated by the Mediterranean race, and often mixed with it, we find the Alpines. This race is characterized by a somewhat short, stocky build much sturdier than the Mediterranean, abundant dark, but not straight, head and body hair, dark eyes and round (brachycephalic) skull.

The center of origin of the Alpines was somewhere in Central Asia west of the true Mongols, north of the Mediterraneans, and east of the Nordics—possibly in Turkestan. The Alpines and Mongols are both characterized by a round skull but, as in the case of the long-skulled Mediterraneans and the long-skulled Negroes, the type of skull differs appreciably.

The Mongols and Alpines have been in close contact for ages. The Mongols have issued again and again from East and Central Asia and submerged the Alpines, driving them westward into Central Europe. There has been a great deal of intermixture and the Slavic Alpine population of eastern Europe frequently shows distinctive Mongol traits. However, the two races, while perhaps remotely connected, differ widely. The Alpines, like the Australoids and to a less extent like the Nordics, have abundant body hair and copious beard, while the Mongols (like their derivatives, the American Indians) are beardless and without body hair. Alpine hair is wavy, that of the Mongols and Mongoloids straight. Alpine features are rather coarse, often with a large prominent nose, while true Mongols have an exceedingly flat face, depressed nose, and a broad space between the eyes. This depressed nose, in adult Mongols, is the retention of an infantile character, as babies of all races are born with bridgeless noses. As to stature, most Alpines are of moderate height, although those from the Tyrol to Albania, the so-called Dinaric race, are decidedly tall.