48 The Classification of Varieties. 



varieties appear to have been chiefly produced in hot coun- 

 tries ; which seems almost to induce the conclusion that they 

 were originally efforts of nature, to enable the skin to with- 

 stand the scorching produced by exposure to the burning 

 rays of a tropical sun.* How far the structural peculiarities of 

 the negro and other races may not, in some cases, be the 

 effects of breed, it woukl be impossible, perhaps, now to 

 ascertain, and would be worse than presumption, in a novice 

 like myself, to fry to determine. Wherever a black indivi- 

 dual was produced, especially among rude nations, if the 

 breed was continued at all, the natural aversion it would cer- 

 tainly iusphe would soon cause it to become isolated, and, 

 before long, would, most probably, compel the race to seek 

 for refuge in emigration. That no example, however, of the 

 first production of a black variety has been recorded, may be 

 ascribed to vat ions causes ; it may have only taken place once 

 since the creation of the human race, and that once in a horde 

 of tropical barbarians 1 emote from the then centres of com- 

 parative civilisation, where no sort of record wou'd have been 

 preserved. Eut it is highly probable that analogous-born 

 varieties may have given rise to the Mongolian, Malay, and 

 certain others of the more diverse races of mankind ; nay, we 

 may even suppose that, in some cases, the difference, in the 

 first instance, was much greater, and was considerably modi- 

 fied by the intermixture which must have taken place in the 

 first generations. The mixed offspring of two different 

 varieties of man thus generally blends the characters of each; 

 though instances are not wanting of its entirely resembling 

 (like the mixed produce of an ancon sheep) either one or the 

 other of its parents; but in this case (as in the albino) the 

 perfect characters of the other parent frequently show them* 

 selves in the next generation. I am entering, however, into 

 a wide field, already weU trodden by many philosophers; 

 and the subject is already probably pretty well understood 

 by the great majority of readers. Those who are not so fa- 

 miliar with it, will find it ably treated in various works ; espe- 

 cially in Dr. Pritchard's work on man, and in the published 

 Lectures on the Natural History of Man, by Lawrence : some 

 sound and excellent remarks on varieties will also be found in 

 the second volume of Lye IPs Principles (f Geology. 



StilL however, it may not be impertinent to remark here, 

 that, as in the brute creation, by a wise provision, the typical 

 characters of a species are, in a state of nature, preserved by 



* See Dr. Stark " on the influence of colour on heat and odours," in 

 Jameson's Edinburgh Journal for July, 1834 ; also Professor Powell's reply 

 to it, in the number for October, 184. 



