Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/568

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

SHORTER ARTICLES

THE SPANISH AMERICAN TYPE

The twenty portraits reproduced here are those of Central American students taken in a haphazard way in a Costa Rican government college. The composite photograph expresses well enough the features common to most of them: the large, dark, dreamy eyes and the relief of both mouth and chin. It may be considered as a good illustration of the Spanish American type. Mexico receives an increasing American element; Brazil and Chile are somewhat Germanized; Argentine is flooded with Italians; in Central America, the race, the habits and the language are still comparatively free from foreign admixture.

By foreign I mean exotic. A stream of Indian indigenous blood flows in the veins of a large number of Central Americans. It reveals itself here and there on some of the faces which surround our central picture.

Aside from that occasional modification the Spanish American is not unlike his Spanish cousin. His features are those of the Mediterranean race. His skull is dolichocephalic. His body is slender. The stature is variable although generally inferior to that of the Baltic race. The circumstances

Composite Photograph giving the Type of the Spanish American Student.