In Ireland the big, blond Nordic Danes claim the honor of the name of “Celt,” if honor it be, but they are fully as Nordic as the English and the great mass of the Irish are of Danish, Norse and Anglo-Norman blood in addition to earlier and Pre-Nordic elements. We are all familiar with the blond and the brunet type of Irishman. These represent precisely the same racial elements as those which enter into the composition of the English, namely, the tall Nordic blond and the little Mediterranean brunet pure or combined with Paleolithic remnants. The Irish are consequently not entitled to independent national existence on the ground of race, but if there be any ground for political separation from England it must rest like that of Belgium on religion, a basis for political combinations now happily obsolete in communities well advanced in culture. In the case of the so-called “Slavic race,” there is much more unity between racial type and language. It is true that in most Slavic-speaking countries the predominant race is clearly Alpine, except perhaps in Russia where there is a very large substratum of Nordic type—which may be considered as Proto-Nordic. The objection which is made to the identification of the Slavic race with the Alpine type rests chiefly on the fact that a very large portion of the Alpine race is German-speaking in Germany, Italian-speaking in Italy and French-speaking in central France. Moreover, large portions of Rumania are of exactly the same racial complexion. Many of the modern Greeks are also Alpines; in fact, are little more than Byzantinized Slavs. It was through the Byzantine Empire that the Slavs first came in contact with the Mediterranean world and through this Greek medium the Russians, the Serbians, the Rumanians and the Bulgarians received their Christianity. Situated on the eastern marches of Europe, the Slavs were submerged during long periods in the Middle Ages by Mongolian hordes and were checked in development and warped in culture. Definite traces remain of the blood of the Mongols both in isolated and compact groups in south Russia and also scattered throughout the whole country as far west as the German boundary. The high tide of the Mongol invasion was during the thirteenth century. Three hundred years later the great Muscovite expansion began, first over the steppes to the Urals and then across Siberian tundras and forests to the waters of the Pacific, taking up in its course much Mongolian blood, especially during the early stages of its advance.