452 VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



bones, and the structure of the teeth, remain unaltered.* Nor 

 are these changes, any more than those induced by mecha- 

 nical means, as pressure, division, &c. transmitted to the off- 

 spring : the child of the most sunburnt rustic is born equally 

 fair with other children ; even all the children among the Moors 

 are born white and acquire the brown cast of their fathers only 

 if exposed to the sun ;f although the Jews have most religiously 

 practised the rite of circumcision from the days of Abraham, 

 their foreskin still remains to be circumcised. { Were it there- 

 fore true that all dark nations are the inhabitants of hot climates, 

 as the confined knowledge of the antients justified them in be- 

 lieving, it would still be untrue that the change effected, for in- 

 stance, in the colour of the parent's skin, had descended to the 

 offspring. But modern discovery has made us acquainted with 

 light nations, inhabiting the warmest regions, with dark nations 

 inhabiting the coldest, and with others of various shades of co- 

 lour although in the same climate. Many protected parts are 



* Cuvier, Discottrs Preliminaire au.r Rccherches sur les Ossemeits Fossiles des 

 Quadrupcdes. Natural varieties only are meant. Local situation can produce 

 the most intimate structural diseases ; witness Cretinism. 



f Poiret, Voyage en Barbaric. T. i. p. 31. Vide Blumcnbach, I.e. 



I Paley, Natural Theology. Ch. 23. p. 472. 



Lord Kaimes, M. de Virey, and Dr. Prichard, have quoted many instances 

 of these facts. ' We found,' says Humboldt, ' the people of the Rio Negro 

 swarthier than those of the lower Orinoco, and yet the banks of the first of 

 these rivers enjoy a much cooler climate than the more northern regions. In 

 the forests of Guiana, especially near the sources of the Orinoco, are several 

 tribes of a whitish complexion, the Guiacas, Guajaribs and Arigues, of whom 

 several robust individuals exhibiting- no symptom of the asthenical malady 

 which characterises Albinos, have the appearance of true Mestizos. Yet these 

 tribes have never mingled wi'h Europeans, and are surrounded with other 

 tribes of a dark brown hue. The Indians, in the torrid zone, who inhabit the 

 most elevated plains of the Cordilleras, of the Andes, and those who are under 

 the 45 of south latitude, have as coppery a complexion as those who under a 

 burning climate cultivate bananos in the narrowest and deepest vallies of the 



