674 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the only alleviating circumstance in Jamaica, where the fierce 

 sea breezes by day, reversing at night, have made life for the 

 English possible. Singapore owes its prosperity to the fact that 

 it is the only place in the East Indies where malaria is com- 

 pletely unknown. Similarlj^, wherever there are alternating sea- 

 sons of heat and cold, the chance of acclimatization becomes 

 greater.* Hence one advantage of the climate of plateaus in the 

 tropics, since both daily and seasonal variations are very great. 

 Even in the major part of the African plateau, however, the ele- 

 vation can not overset the monotony of the tropical climate, the 

 seasonal variations ranging much lower than ours, while the 

 mean temperature is fifty per cent higher. f 



Altitude, while giving at least temporary relief to the white 

 race, % seems to exert a peculiarly baneful effect upon the negro 

 and the Indian. Dr. Spruce gives an interesting example* of 

 great economic distress produced by it in South America. Coffee 

 grows in the zone from four thousand to six thousand feet, and 

 the demand for native labor is very great. Indians coming from 

 above die of dysentery, while if they come from the coast they 

 succumb to respiratory diseases, so that the planters are severely 

 hampered. It is said in our Southern States that the negro can 

 not go from the hill country to the plains without great physio- 

 logic disturbance. | Jousset declares that the elevation of three 

 thousand to forty-five hundred feet proves fatal to the negro in 

 Africa.^ This, of course, is due in part to the greater sensitiveness 

 of all primitive peoples to climatic changes, and partly due to lack 

 of hygiene. But that the negro by nature really lacks a power of 

 accommodation, even in the tropics, in this respect is conceded by 

 most observers ; for by change of habitat he loses the immuni- 



* Jousset, p. 62. An interesting table to illustrate this in Cuba is given from Ramon de la 

 Segra in Revue d'Anthropologie, new series, i, p. 76 (although the relief in winter to the 

 white, becomes correspondingly fatal to the negro). Lombard's Atlas, Maps 2 and 3, shows 

 the effect of seasons in Europe. 



f This was fully discussed in the Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of 

 Demography and Hygiene, p. 155, in London. Drs. Felkin and Markham took a hopeful 

 view of the Central African region. Ravenstein declared Matabeleland alone to satisfy 

 the conditions (Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, January, 1891, p. 81). 

 Jousset, p. 341, asserts that an elevation of three thousand to forty-five hundred feet will 

 make acclimatization everywhere possible in the tropics. 



\ Jousset, p. 57, as well as p. 434. Vide also Dr. Montano, p. 434. Topiuard, Anthro- 

 pologic, p. 392, analyzes Bertillon's views in this regard. 



* Wallace, op. cit. 



II An interesting letter in the Nation, October 12, 1893. Vide also Revue d'Anthro- 

 pologie, new series, v, p. 30. 



^ Op. cit, p. 341. 



Vide discussion in the Bulletin de la Societe d'Anthropologie, i, p. 528 ; Hunt, op. cit., 

 p. 131 ; Jousset, p. 148 ; Ratzel, i, p. 304. Cf. the case of Apaches in Alabama given in the 

 Publications of the American Statistical Society, September, 1893. 



