242 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 



are affirmed to be either infertile, or less fertile 

 than those which take place between males and fe- 

 males of either stock under the same circum- 

 stances. Some go so far as to assert that no mixed 

 breeds of mankind can maintain themselves with- 

 out the assistance of one or other of the parent 

 stocks, and that, consequently, they must inevit- 

 ably be obliterated in the long run. 



Here, again, it is exceedingly difficult to obtain 

 trustworthy evidence and to free the effects of the 

 pure physiological experiment from adventitious 

 influences. The only trial which, by a strange 

 chance, was kept clear of all such influences — the 

 only instance in which two distinct stocks of man- 

 kind were crossed, and their progeny intermarried 

 without any admixture from without — is the fa- 

 mous case of the Pitcairn Islanders, who were the 

 progeny of Bligh's English sailors by Tahitian 

 women. The results of this experiment, as every- 

 body knows, are dead against those who maintain 

 the doctrine of human hybridity, seeing that the 

 Pitcairn Islanders, even though they necessarily 

 contracted consanguineous marriages, throve and 

 multiplied exceedingly. 



But those who are disposed to believe in this 

 doctrine should study the evidence brought forward 

 in its support by M. Broca, its latest and ablest 

 advocate, and compare this evidence with that 

 which the botanists, as represented by a Gaertner 

 or by a Darwin, think it indispensable to obtain 



