Of the three races, Mediterranean man seems to be perfectly adapted to a dry region, with deficient pasture, naturally clothed with a drought-resisting type of forest. As he prospered he spread beyond his own region, with the result that he reached a region markedly different in climate and vegetation from his own, to which his adaptation was never very perfect. Where, as in Ireland and western Great Britain, the conditions permitted the natural growth of some of the Mediterranean plants, there his hold was fairly firm, elsewhere it must always have been loose and uncertain.
Into a Europe thus peopled, with probably large vacant spaces, came a pastoral type of man from Asia, certainly a transporter, if not an originator, of a higher culture, best fitted for a region of pasture land, but better fitted than Mediterranean man to withstand cold. He filled the spaces which Mediterranean man could not fill, and pressed him hard in many places. Ultimately the forest region of Europe evolved its own type, perhaps from some aberrant strain of Mediterranean man, and this type, perfectly fitted to the forest regions, conquered the north and west, driving Alpine man up to the hills, and largely displacing Mediterranean man except where distinctively Mediterranean influences prevailed.
To the east, as the European forest dies away into the steppes of Asia, Nordic man can no longer compete successfully with Alpine man, and diminishes in numbers and in strength.
Thus while in Germany the tendency is for the tall, fair longheads of the north to dominate the short, darker broadheads of the south, further to the east this same broad-headed race, under the banner of Panslavism, strives, not unsuccessfully, to dominate the longheads of Finland and elsewhere.
Thus below and beneath the warfare of race is the contrast of physical conditions, which have produced the various types of man, no less than of plants and animals, and from which man cannot fully emancipate himself.
The New World was first colonised by Mediterranean man, but later all the European races contributed their part to its peopling. When we add a strong negro element in the southern United States, a remnant of the original Indian population, and an infusion of eastern races, it is obvious that the mingling of blood which has apparently produced good results in Europe, is being carried out on a much more elaborate scale across the Atlantic.