Section IL, 1885. [ 1 ] Teans. Roy. Soc. Canada. 



I.— The Ealf-Breed. 



By John Reade. 



(Prc^sented May 28, 1885.) 



The opiuiou prevails that the iusiou of white with Indian blood is of rare occurrence 

 north of the Gulf of Mexico. There is, however, reason to believe that, both in Canada 

 and the United States, it has been much more common than is generally assumed. In 

 Mexico, the West Indies, Central and South America, pure blood is the exception, mixed 

 blood the rule. Nor is it the aborigines alone that in this hemisphere have given rise, 

 through their intercourse with Europeans, to new racial varieties. The negro has contri- 

 buted largely to the same result, and the Chinese are also beginning to have an appreciable 

 influence on the population of parts of the New World. In different regions of the Old 

 World an aualogous process is goingon. Asia, Africa and the island domain of the Indian 

 and Pa'ific Oceans furnish many instances of race amalgamation. Wherever we turn, 

 indeed, we. find that, in one shape or another, the inhabitants of the earth are, slowly 

 in some places, with surprising rapidity in others, undergoing transformation by inter- 

 fusion of blood. 



The fact is not a novelty in human history. As far back as our knowledge of man- 

 kind can reach, with the evidences of race diversity we discover the indications of race 

 intermixture. On the almost universally accepted theory of the unity of the human 

 species, those divergences of feature and complexion which distinguish race from race 

 must have reqixired many ages to bring about. How they were caused we can only con- 

 jecture ; but we know that lour thousand years ago the negro was as much a negro as he 

 is to-day. Of the neighbours of the Egyptians when their earliest moniTuients were con- 

 striicted. Dr. Birch writes : '• South of Syeue lay the numerous blaiïk tribes, the so-called 

 Nahsi ov negroes, inferior in civilization, but turbulent and impatient of subjection. The 

 skirts of the desert were held by wandering tribes called Satu, not yet subjected to the 

 arms and discipline of Egypt. The western frontier was menaced by the Taheimu or 

 Libyans. Beyond the north-east desert in which resided the Herusha, or inhabitants of the 

 Waste, were the Menai, perhaps also a shepherd race, the dwellers of northern Asia ; and 

 hazily in the distance were seen the nascent forms of the empires of Babylon and Assyria, 

 and the slowly rising power of the Phœnician States and Kingdoms.'" Champollion- 

 Figeac, citing the authority of his more illustrious brother, is still more explicit in his ac- 

 count of the nations known to the Egyptians, which he illustrates by six figures copied 

 from the tombs of the Kings at Biban-el-Molouk." These leave no doubt that the Egyptians 



' Egypt from the Earliest Times to B.C. 300, by S. Birch, Introd. p. ix. 

 - Egypte Ancienne, p. 30. 



Sec. II., 1885. 1. 



