380 ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS. 



population of persons of color increases considerably in certain countries, it is not, 

 accordino- to M. Siraonot, from its own fecundity but through the reinforcements 

 it incessantly receives from continual crossings of the whites and blacks. To 

 the numerous and weighty facts which M. Perier has brought together in his 

 learned memoir on the cross-breeding of human races, and which authorize a 

 doubt of the validity and fecundity of many h^'brid populations, M. Simonot 

 adds another which, according to his own observation, would oppose a still more 

 decisive obstacle to the fonnation of mixed races: the tendency, namely, which, 

 after the lapse of some generations, restores gradually the descendants of hybrids 

 to the type of one or other of the mother races. These phenomema of atavism 

 have become difficult to be distinguished from the effects of crossings in a recur- 

 rent direction, because hybrids of different bloods pair and mix on all sides, 

 whether with one another or with individuals of pure race. But this complica- 

 tion can be easil}'' avoided in experiments made upon the domestic animals : hence 

 M. Sanson has been enabled to take his stand upon many precise facts in order 

 to demonstrate the instability of the characters of hybrids. M. Pruner-bey 

 pointed out, however, that conclusions drawn from the study of certain crossings 

 might not be applicable to other crossings different from the former in the nature 

 of the races or species, or in the conditions of the medium in which they are 

 efiected. 



It is very probable, in effect, that these different circumstances have an influ- 

 ence on the results of cross-breeding. It is necessary, above all, to take account 

 of the degree of proximity of the races; and what results most clearh' from the 

 researches of M. Perier is, that the disadvantages of cross-breeding are the more 

 decided as the two mother races are more unlike. If the similarity of the parents 

 constitutes a favorable condition, it is natural to think that, all things else being 

 equal and abstraction being made of hereditary pathological influences, consan- 

 guineous unions cannot become detrimental from the sole fact of consanguinity. 

 It is thus that M. Perier has been logically led to connect the opposite, but yet 

 reciprocally dependent, questions of hybridity and consanguinity. 



These two questions have, from the origin of the society, given rise to a great 

 number of memoirs and discussions in which contradictory opinions have been 

 brought to light. But I should speak here only of the facts which have been 

 adduced within two j^ears past. I shall not recur, therefore, to the debates which 

 were maintained some years ago, between MM. Boudin and de Ranee, adver- 

 saries of consanguineous unions, and MM. Bourgeois, Perier, Dally, who denied 

 the harmfulness of those unions. No one contested the reality of certain facts 

 alleged against consanguinity ; all acknowledged that in families infected with 

 constitutional vices or hereditary diatheses, mamage between cousins leads to 

 unfortunate results; but these results were attributed by the one party to the 

 consanguinitj' itself, while the other considered them but as a particular case of 

 the accidents of inheritance. These last gave expression to their opinion by say- 

 ing that hcaltlui consanguinity is exempt from bad effects. The question 

 being stated in this form, it was no longer competent to seek here and there for 

 sporadic examples which might appear more or less favorable to one or the other 

 thesis. To avoid the chances of error resulting from individual accidents, it was 

 necessary to study the efiects of consanguinity in some restricted and well-circum- 

 scribed populations, in which unions between relations are habitual. This has 

 been done with the greatest precision by our colleague, M. Voisin. The commune 

 of Batz, situated on a small peninsula north of the mouth of the Loire, com- 

 prises a population of 3,300 souls, devoted exclusively to the cultivation of the 

 salt marshes. The special nature of this industry offers little attraction to 

 strangers; hence it is very rare for an inhabitant to marry beyond his conunune, 

 while consanguineous unions, even within the degree prohibited by the church. 

 are extremely frequent. Thus, in the year 1865, there took place between cou- 

 eins-german or their issue 15 marriages, tor which it was necessary to ask ecclesi- 



