Note 1229 — Chapter XV · —Mountain Barriers And Their Passes

The inequality of slope has ethnic as well as political effects, especially where a latitudinal direction also makes a sharp contrast of climate on the two sides of the mountain system. Except in the Roman period, the southern face of the Alps has been an enclosing wall to the Italians. The southern cultivator penetrated its high but sunny valleys only when forced by poverty, while the harsh climate on the long northern slope effectively repelled him. On the other hand, Switzerland has overstepped the Alpine crest in the province of Ticino and thrust its political boundary in a long wedge down to the lowland of the Po near Como; and the Alpine race, spilling everywhere over the mountain rim into the inviting Po basin, has given to this lowland population a relatively broad skull, blond coloring and tall figure, sharply contrasted with the pure Mediterranean race beyond the crest of the Apennines.1229