derful changes in domesticated animals, as for us, until well informed on the subject, scarcely to believe that they are only a variety, but conclude them different species, why may we not ascribe the same causes as having affected the human family in the same way? In applying the reasons derived from the causes just mentioned, it may not be amiss to advert to the following rules:--

1. The greater the number of causes of degeneration, and the longer they continue to act on the same species, the more obviously will that species deviate from its original formation. Man, therefore, must be expected to vary more than any animal, since he has been subjected from his very origin to the united agencies of climate, food, and way of life.

2. A cause in itself possessing sufficient efficacy, may be weakened by the concurrence of other conditions tending to diminish its operations. Thus, countries placed under the same parallel of latitude have very different temperatures; and the ef fects of situation on the human subject are varied according as it is more or less elevated, or as it may be influenced by the neighbourhood of the sea, marshes, or woods, &c.

3. The source of degeneration is often to be sought for, not in any immediate cause, but in the mediate influence of some more latent agency. Thus, the dark colour of the skin may not arise from the direct action of the sun, but its more remote and very signal influence on the hepatic system.

4. These indirect and mediate causes may be so very obscure, that we cannot even form any probable conjecture as to their nature; yet we seem to be warranted in referring those phenomena of degeneration, which have hitherto appeared enigmatical, to the operation of such unknown powers. Thus we must explain the constant natural form of the crania, colours of eye, &c.

CHAPTER II.

VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN RACE.

The colour of the skin forms a very constant hereditary charracter. The different varieties of mankind exhibit every possible shade, between the snowy whiteness of the European female and the jet black of the African negro. Although none of the

gradations obtain so universally, as to be found in all the individuals of any particular nation, nor are so peculiar to one race, as not to occur occasionally in other widely different ones, the national varieties of colour may be referred on the whole, with sufficient accuracy, to the five following principal classes.

1. White; to which redness of the cheeks is almost wholly confined; being at least very rarely, if at all, in the other varieties. This obtains in most of the European nations, and in the western Asiatics, as the Turks, Georgians, Circassians, Mingrelians, Armenians, Persians, &c. and in the inhabitants of the northern parts of Africa,

Yellow, or olive, (a middle tint between that of wheat and dried lemon peel,) characterises the Mongolian tribes, usually so called; together with the inhabitants of great part of Asia, the Tartars.

3. Red, or copper-colour; (an obscure orange or rusty iron colour, not unlike the bark of the cinnamon tree,) almost wholly confined to the native Americans.

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4. Tawny, or brown; (a middle tint between that of fresh mahogany and cloves or chesnuts,) which belongs to the Malays, and the inhabitants of the South Sea islands.

5. Black, in various shades, from the sooty colour or tawny black, to that of pitch or jet black. This is well known to prevail very extensively on the continent of Africa: it is found also in very different and distant varieties of the human race, mingled with the national colour; as in the natives of Brazil, California, India, and in some of the South Sea islands, as New Holland and New Guinea.

In describing these five varieties, we fix on the strongest tints, between which, there is every conceivable immediate shade of colour. The opposite extremes run into each other by the nicest and most delicate gradations, as in every other particular in which the human species differs; and this forms no slight objection to the hypothesis of different species. For, on that supposition, we cannot define the number of species, nor can we point out the boundaries which divide them. Whereas, in animals, which most resemble each other, the different species are preserved pure and unmixed. Neither does the colour, which we describe in general terms as belonging to any particular race, prevail so universally in all the individuals of that race as to constitute so invariable a character as we should expect, if it arose from such an uniform cause as an original specific difference. Its varieties, on the contrary, arise out of accidental circumstances. Thus, although the red colour is very general on the American continent, travellers have observed fair tribes in several parts; as Bou

guer in Peru, Cook at Nootka Sound, and Weld near the United States. The natives of New Zealand vary from a deep black to an olive or yellowish tinge; in the Friendly Islands they are of a complexion deeper than the copper brown, but many of both sex⚫es are said to be of an olive colour, and some of the women much fairer.

Climate may be regarded as the cause of national colour, and much may be ascribed to the light and heat of the sun. For we find from geography, (and according to the supporters of this opinion also,) that every parallel of latitude is marked with a characteristic complexion. Under the equator we observe the black colour; under the tropics the dark brown and copper colours; and from the tropic of cancer northwards we find the olive colour changing through every intermediate shade to the fair and sanguine complexion. It is further observable, that a European exposed to the sun and air will become brown in summer, and lose this colour again during the winter's cold; and also that the Asiatic and some of the African women confined to their seralios, are as white as Europeans, while the colour of those exposed to the rays of the sun is dark like that of the men; and that the skin of Moorish children, which is originally fair, is changed in the boys who are exposed to the sun to a swarthy colour, while it is fair in the girls who keep more within doors. The south of Spain is distinguished by complexion from the north: and the inhabitants of the extensive empire of China exhibit every variety of complexion from the fair to the black, according to the latitude of the country which they inhabit.

It appears also, that although fair persons have their colour considerably deepened by a change into a hotter climate, yet, that the black races are very little affected by coming into cold countries. We must remember, though, that if Europeans seem to be less affected than we should have supposed by changing to a hot climate, that, by avoiding the heat of the sun, by different clothing, diet, &c. they may avoid many of the causes which act with full energy on the natives of such climates. It may also be considered that the hepatic functions are much influenced by the sun; and that great sympathy exists between the liver and skin, manifested by the dark tinge of the latter in persons of an atrabilious temperament. There is no climate so favourable for the operation of these causes as that of Africa, which surpasses all others in the continued intensity of its heat, and in peculiar properties of the atmosphere, arising from singular winds, &c. Accordingly, its inhabitants have, by exposure to these agencies for a long series of ages, acquired a strongly-marked and and deeprooted character, and transmitted it unimpaired to their posterity,

even in foreign climates. Some objections have been made to the explanation of colour derived from climate, which seem to admit of solution. The temperature of no country can be determined by considering merely its geographical climate, or its distance from the equator; we must advert at the same time to the physical climate or that which is produced in any given latitude by such adventitious circumstances as low or elevated positions, neighbouring waters, &c. The Abyssinians, although nearly under the equator, by no means approach in colour to negroes; for their country is very elevated. The inhabitants of the South Sea islands under the line, and indeed in those islands in general, are much lighter coloured than we should have expected; and this arises from the coolness natural to insular situations. We find no Negroes under the line in America as in Africa; a circumstance which admits of an easy solution. On the western side of America there is one of the most elevated regions of the globe. The plain of Quito, which is the base of the Andes, is higher than the top of the Pyrennees, and the summits of these mountains, although in the centre of the torrid zone, are covered with everlasting snow. The country abounds with large rivers, traversing it from west to east. It is covered by vast pools of stagnant water, and the largest forests in the world; it contains. no sandy waters like those of Africa. Hence, the temperature of America in any place, is different from that of corresponding parts of the old continent.

The brown and tawny colours are not wholly confined to warm climates; they are found in the northern regions of Europe and Asia, countries, which, from their excessive cold, and consequent sterility, are scarcely habitable. We will endeavour to account for this by the inhabitants of these regions living on the flesh of rein-deer, and dried fish. Their bread is made of pounded fish bones, with the bark of the pine or birch tree. They drink much whale oil; live under ground, or in huts sunk below the surface of the earth, and during their long winter night keep up lamp-light and are enveloped in smoke; and at other times are exposed to the action of a most inhospitable climate, in following their occupations of hunting and fishing. This mode of life will naturally render the skin coarse and dark, and the discolouration thus produced is said to be increased in many instances by the habit of painting the body, and smearing it with grease, a practice which very commonly prevails among savages. Such an effect is sometimes produced by these practices, that the colour of the skin cannot be ascertained. We have to observe further, that the effect of climate is much modified by clothing, by the state of society, and the manner of life in gene

ral. Dr. Smith, in writing on this subject, says that "the state of society and manner of life have a very powerful influence, as may be seen by us in the field slaves, who are badly fed, clothed and lodged, are remote from the society and example of their superiors, and retaining many of the customs and manners of their African ancestors, are slow in changing the aspect and figure of the African; while the domestic servants, who are employed in the houses and families of their masters, see their manners, and adopt their habits, have advanced far before them in acquiring the agreeable and regular features, and the expressive countenance of civilized society." He also mentions, that persons who have been captured by the natives of America from the United States, and have grown up in the habits of savage life, contract such a strong resemblance of the natives, in their countenance, and even in their complexion, as to afford a striking proof, that the difference which exists in the same latitude between the anglo-American and the Indian, depends much on the state of society, food, clothing, &c. Perhaps, the strongest circumstance in illustation of the effect of climate on the human complexion, may be derived from the Creoles; which word, though sometimes strangely confounded with mulatto, is applied properly to the offspring of Europeans, born in the East or West Indies. These have such a peculiar character of complexion and countenance, that they are easily distinguished, by those points alone, from their relations born in Europe.

CHAPTER III.

COLOUR AND DENOMINATION OF THE MIXED BREEDS.

We have already noticed how constantly children, produced from individuals of different races, exhibit what we may call the middle tinge, formed as it were by the mixture of the two parents. In the first generation, the offspring of Europeans and Negroes, are called Mulattos; of Europeans and Indians, Mestizes; of Europeans and Americans, Mestizes; of Negroes and Indians, Zambi or Mulattos. All these have the middle colour and countenance, formed by the union of those of both parties: the latter is more or less brown or tawney, with hardly any visible redness of the cheeks. The hair of the Mulatto is curled;