The Tropics and Pigment 355 



he was on the eve of an ethnological tour, during which he 

 hoped to come to some solution of these difficulties. He went 

 on to declare himself in favour of race purity, and said that by 

 the aid of red roads and a system of cool storage, with due 

 regard to wet bulb readings and hygiene, the white man might 

 ultimately hope to maintain a permanent hold in the tropics. 

 Professor Allen, in a personal interview with the writer, also 

 declared for race purity, and hoped that by the aid of science 

 and the inculcation of habits co^nformiable to the situation, the 

 white man might maintain a permanent occupancy of the 

 tropics. He instanced the present condition of the Panama 

 under American administration. He, however, did not state that 

 the great mass of unskilled labourers were coloured men 

 gathered from anywhere and everywhere, while the skilled white 

 labour had all the protection that American ingenuity could 

 contrive for them. 



Then again we have Dr. Barrett's letter in the " Argus " of 

 October 14th, 1911, appealing for a Chair of Anthropology, in 

 which he writes : — 



" We might from such a Chair learn accurately how it is 

 that the coloured man so far holds the Tropics. We might 

 discover the elements of structure and functions which he may 

 possess and we d'O not, that has enabled him so far to hold his 

 tropical dominion." 



xA.nd it is to this enquiry that the follo'wing statement is an 

 answer, viz. : — 



That the pigment of a black man protects him against the 

 violence of radiant heat, as well as against light and actinic rays, 

 by converting these energies into actual heat, which in turn 

 is dissipated by the evaporation of moisture, this moisture being 

 the result of the reflex stimulation of the sweat glands set up by 

 the heated pigment, which is buried in cells in close contact 

 with the nerve terminals. 



Tliis statement will explain the difference between lieatstroke 

 and sunstroke ; why a Chinaman carries a fan, and an English 

 tourist an umbrella. These questions are dealt with in another 

 portion of the paper. But what is more important to Aus- 

 tralians, it declares that tropics must ever remain the home of 

 the coloured man. 



