In respect to the composition of this great current, the period in question has witnessed a profound and most significant change. We have seen that prior to 1882 practically the entire body of immigrants was made up of individuals from Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Scandinavian countries. From that year on, these have steadily decreased in importance, and their places have been taken by contingents from Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and other south European countries. This change has been so pronounced as to lead to a separation of immigrants into the “old immigration” and the “new immigration,” a distinction which has become familiar to every casual student of the subject. The Immigration Commission has recently given its official sanction to this classification, and in its reports follows this scheme: the old immigration includes those from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland; the new immigration, those from Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Roumania, Russia, Servia, Spain, Syria, and Turkey. This schedule refers only to European countries (with the exception of Syria and Turkey, which ethnically belong to Europe), without reference to non-European sources. But immigration to the United States is as yet almost wholly a European movement, so that other countries may be neglected in any general consideration. In so far as there are any immigrants from non-European sources they would naturally be classed with the new immigration. Roughly speaking, the old immigration came from the north and west of Europe, the new immigration comes from the south and east of that continent.