Chap. VIL THE RACES OF MAN. 241 



cross, the first result is a heterogeneous mixture : 

 thus Mr. Hunter, in describing the Santali or hill- 

 tribes of India, says that hundreds of imperceptible 

 gradations may be traced " from the black, squat tribes 

 " of the mountains to the tall olive-coloured Brahman, 

 " with his intellectual brow, calm eyes, and high but 

 " narrow head;" so that it is necessary in courts of 

 justice to ask the witnesses whether they are Santalis 

 or Hindoos. 37 Whether a heterogeneous people, such 

 as the inhabitants of some of the Polynesian islands, 

 formed by the crossing of two distinct races, with few 

 or no pure members left, would ever become homo- 

 geneous, is not known from direct evidence. But as 

 with our domesticated animals, a crossed breed can 

 certainly, in the course of a few generations, be fixed 

 and made uniform by careful selection, 38 we may infer 

 that the free and prolonged intercrossing during many 

 generations of a heterogeneous mixture would supply 

 the place of selection, and overcome any tendency to 

 reversion, so that a crossed race would ultimately be- 

 come homogeneous, though it might not partake in an 

 equal degree of the characters of the two parent-races. 



Of all the differences between the races of man, the 

 colour of the skin is the most conspicuous and one of 

 the best marked. Differences of this kind, it was for- 

 merly thought, could be accounted for by long expo- 

 sure under different climates ; but Pallas first shewed 

 that this view is not tenable, and he has been followed 

 by almost all anthropologists. 39 The view has been 



37 ' The Annals of Rural Bengal,' 1868, p. 134. 



38 ' The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,' vol. 

 ii. p. 95. 



89 Pallas, 'Act. Acad. St. Petersburgh,' 1780, part ii. p. 69. He 

 was followed by Rudolphi, in his ' Beytr'age zur Anthropologic, ' 1812. 

 An excellent summary of the evidence is given by Godron, ' De 

 l'Espece,' 1859, vol. ii. p. 246, &c. 



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