2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the Peruvian Andes are darker than the Yuracaras of the forests to 

 the east. The inhabitants of the Altai Mountains are yellow ; those of 

 the plains of European Russia, at the same distance from the equator, 

 white. According to Foissac, the blackness of the negro is a conse- 

 quence of his vegetable diet, by which his blood is overloaded with 

 carbon. But this theory, likewise, breaks down when submitted to the 

 test of a comparison with the facts. The nomads of the Asiatic 

 deserts, who live mainly on milk and flesh, are certainly not fairer 

 than the grain eating peasants whom they plunder ; and the Buddhists 

 of China and Japan, whose religion prohibits the use of animal food, 

 do not differ in color from their neighbors of other creeds. The influ- 

 ence of humidity has attracted the attention of some writers. Sir R. 

 Schomburgk and M. d'Orbigny hold that it tends to lighten, Dr. Liv- 

 ingstone and others that it tends to darken, the hue. I shall state 

 below my reasons for agreeing with the former. 



Mr. Charles Darwin, Professor Huxley, M. Quatrefages, and others, 

 think it probable that racial distinctions owe their origin to the selec- 

 tive operation of the prevailing diseases of particular climates. As- 

 suming, what is amply supported by facts, that individuals slightly 

 diverging in various directions from the type are constantly being pro- 

 duced, it is obvious that if a dark or a light complexion be correlated 

 with power to resist a particular disease, or group of diseases, a white 

 race may, by natural selection, be gradually developed from a colored 

 one, or vice versa. M. Quatrefages has suggested that the malarial 

 fevers of Africa have wrought this effect there, and that phthisis has 

 been the agent in *the north of Europe. It certainly is the case that 

 the tropical regions of Africa are very unhealthy for whites, and that 

 the negro dies out north of the parallel of 40 in both hemispheres ; 

 but this does not show that both races might not be acclimatized by 

 slow degrees without loss of color. In other words, no reason has been 

 shown for thinking that it is to the complexion and not to some other 

 racial peculiarity that the relative immunity from certain maladies is 

 due. To connect the color with this immunity is the object of this 

 paper. 



I may say at the outset that I do not attach much importance to 

 the direct influence of climatic conditions. It is, indeed, a matter of 

 common observation that these produce considerable effects on the 

 individual. Primer, for example, states -that he has noticed that "the 

 European acclimated in Egypt acquires after some time a tawny skin, 

 and in Abyssinia a bronzed skin ; he becomes pallid on the coast of 

 Arabia, cachectic white in Syria, clear brown in the deserts of Arabia, 

 and ruddy in the Syrian mountains."* But there is no proof that 

 these cutaneous changes are inherited. If, however, it can be shown 

 that a particular kind of skin is better than others for withstanding 

 certain obvious weakening influences of a given climate, it stands to 



Waitz, " Anthropology." 



