TVhite Negro, 589 



With regard to the supposed impossibility of water pene- 

 trating to the depths at which these inflammable substances 

 may be imagined to exist, and likewise to the improbability 

 of air finding admittance to the same spots, I shall be ready 

 to discuss the reasonableness of such a conjecture, when the 

 facts, that volumes of steam are constantly issuing from all 

 volcanoes, and that azotic gas, either pure or combined with 

 hydrogen, is so generally present during all the phases of 

 volcanic action, are shown to be referable to other causes than 

 the presence of water and air at the spots in which volcanic 

 action occurs. 



I have, however, neither time nor inclination at present to 

 go over the details of the argument a second time, especially 

 as the curiosity of those of your readers who may feel an 

 interest in the discussion may be gratified very speedily, if 

 you will only transfer to the pages of your Magazine some 

 few paragraphs of the article on volcanoes, which will appear 

 in the Encyclopcedia Metropolitana ; and this, probably, quite 

 as soon as any remarks with which I might at present trouble 

 you would find their way into print. 



I am. Sir, &c. 

 Oxford, Sept, 17. 1834. Charles Daubeny. 



Art. X. Short Communications, 



Mammiferous Animals. — Species of Animals of *which 

 Individuals with their external Covering of an anomalous Colour^, 

 permanent, have been known, — It is not improbable that the 

 registering instances of this anomalousness may avail, when 

 the facts registered shall have become numerous, some lucid 

 general inferences regarding it. As we entertain this opinion, 

 we shall be happy to insert all notices of marked cases which 

 may be sent to us ; and shall feel additionally interested, as 

 our readers, doubtless, will also, if any facts appertaining to 

 what we may call the physiological conditions, parentage, &c., 

 of the creatures noted on be supplied in connection. 



A curious Variety of the Human Race was lately to be seen 

 in my parish. The two parents, who were negroes, had 

 several children of their own colour, but the one alluded to 

 had a skin uniformly as fair as that of the European. The 

 child's hair was white, but curly, as in the negro race ; the 

 nose and lips were European, and the iris of the eye blue. 

 It was a healthy, fine child. These varieties, which depend 

 on some disease or thinness of the rete mucosum, are some- 



