In the lower classes in the Southern States of America the increasing proportion of “poor whites” and “crackers” are symptoms of lack of climatic adjustment. The whites in Georgia, in the Bahamas and, above all, in Barbadoes are excellent examples of the deleterious effects of residence outside the natural habitat of the Nordic race. The poor whites of the Cumberland Mountains in Kentucky and Tennessee present a more difficult problem, because here the altitude, even though moderate, should modify the effects of latitude and the climate of these mountains cannot be particularly unfavorable to men of Nordic breed. There are probably other hereditary forces at work there as yet little understood. No doubt bad food and economic conditions, prolonged inbreeding and the loss through emigration of the best elements have played a large part in the degeneration of these mountaineers. They represent to a large extent the offspring of indentured servants brought over by the rich planters in early Colonial times and their names indicate that many of them are the descendants of the old borderers along the Scotch and English frontier. The persistence with which family feuds are maintained certainly points to such an origin. The physical type is typically Nordic, for the most part pure Saxon or Anglian, and the whole mountain population show somewhat aberrant but very pronounced physical, moral and mental characteristics which would repay scientific investigation. The problem is too complex to be disposed of by reference to the hookworm, illiteracy or competition with Negroes. This type played a large part in the settlement of the Middle West, by way of Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri. Thence they passed both up the Missouri River and down the Santa Fé trail and contributed rather more than their share of the train robbers, horse thieves and bad men of the West. Scotland and the Bahamas are inhabited by men of precisely the same race, but the vigor of the English in the Bahamas is gone and the beauty of their women has faded. The fact that they were not in competition with an autochthonous race better adjusted to climatic conditions has enabled them to survive, but the type could not have persisted, even during the last two hundred years, if they had been compelled to compete on terms of equality with a native and acclimated population. Another element entering into racial degeneration on many other islands and for that matter in many New England villages, is the loss through emigration of the more vigorous and energetic individuals, leaving behind the less efficient to continue the race at home.