Chap. VII. THE KACES OF MAN. 221 



been said that when mulattoes intermarry they produce 

 few children ; on the other hand, Dr. Bachman of 

 Charlestown u positively asserts that he has known 

 mulatto families which have intermarried for several 

 generations, and have continued on an average as fertile 

 as either pure whites or pure blacks. Inquiries formerly 

 made by Sir C. Lyell on this subject led him, as he 

 informs me, to the same conclusion. In the United 

 States the census for the year 1854 included, according 

 to Dr. Bachman, 405,751 mulattoes ; and this number, 

 considering all the circumstances of the case, seems 

 small ; but it may partly be accounted for by the de- 

 graded and anomalous position of the class, and by the 

 profligacy of the women. A certain amount of absorp- 

 tion of mulattoes into negroes must always be in pro- 

 gress ; and this would lead to an apparent diminution 

 of the former. The inferior vitality of mulattoes is 

 spoken of in a trustworthy work 12 as a well-known 

 phenomenon ; but this is a different consideration from 

 their lessened fertility ; and can hardly be advanced as 

 a proof of the specific distinctness of the parent races. 

 No doubt both animal and vegetable hybrids, when 

 produced from extremely distinct species, are liable to 

 premature death ; but the parents of mulattoes cannot 

 be put under the category of extremely distinct species. 

 The common Mule, so notorious for long life and vigour, 

 and yet so sterile, shews how little necessary connection 



statement, that Australian women who have borne children to a white 

 man are afterwards sterile with their own race^ is disproved. M. A. de 

 Quatrefages has also collected (' Eevue des Cours Scientifiques,' March, 

 1869, p. 239) much evidence that Australians and Europeans are not 

 sterile when crossed. 



11 ' An Examination of Prof. Agassiz's Sketch of the Nat. Provinces 

 of the Animal World,' Charleston, 1855, p. 44. 



12 'Military and Anthropolog. Statistics of American Soldiers,' by 

 B. A. Gould, 18G9, p. 319. 



