│ │ │ │ great │ │ │ │ │ Yue-chih │ │ │ │ │ into the │ │ │ │ │ Tarim │ │ │ │ │ basin. │ ├───┼───────────┼─────────────┼────────────┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │100 to │ │ │ │14.│ Christian│ │ │ │ │ Era │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├───┼───────────┼─────────────┼────────────┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │15.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └───┴───────────┴─────────────┴────────────┘ These incoming Nordics intermarried with the native populations and were gradually bred out and the resurgence of the old native stock, chiefly Alpine, has proceeded steadily since the Frankish Charlemagne destroyed the Lombard kingdom and is proceeding with unabated vigor to-day. This process was greatly accelerated in western Europe by the Crusades, which were extremely destructive to the Nordic feudal lords, especially the Frankish and Norman nobility and was continued by the wars of the Reformation and by those of the Revolution. The world war now in full swing with its toll of millions will leave Europe much poorer in Nordic blood. One of its most certain results will be the partial destruction of the aristocratic classes everywhere in northern Europe. In England the nobility has already suffered in battle more than in any century since the Wars of the Roses. This will tend to realize the standardization of type so dear to democratic ideals. If equality cannot be obtained by lengthening and uplifting the stunted of body and of mind, it can be at least realized by the destruction of the exalted of stature and of soul. The bed of Procrustes operates with the same fatal exactness when it shortens the long as when it stretches the undersized. The first Nordics in Spain were the Gauls who crossed the western Pyrenees about the end of the sixth century before our era and introduced Aryan speech into the Iberian Peninsula. They quickly mixed with Mediterranean natives and the composite Spaniards were called Celtiberians by the Romans. In Portugal and Spain there are in the physical structure of the population few traces of these early Celtic-speaking Nordic invaders but the Suevi, who a thousand years later occupied parts of Portugal, and the Vandals and Visigoths, who conquered and held Spain for 300 years, have left some small evidence of their blood. In the provinces of northern Spain a considerable percentage of light colored eyes reveals these Nordic elements in the population.