BY WILLIAM E, ARMIT, F.L.S., F.R.G.S. 93 
Kabadi, on the Aroa River, Hood Bay, and Aroma Districts, 
that there is no reason to believe that any mixture of races has 
ever taken place among the people at present inhabiting the 
island. 
He includes the people of New Britain, New Ireland, Solomon 
Islands, the New Hebrides, the Loyalty Islands, and Fiji as 
belonging to the true Papuans. 
To these must be added the inhabitants of the Louisiade 
Archipelago, who differ in no respect from the Papuans of New 
Guinea. 
'Dr. Finsch describes the Papuan or Melanesian as being of a 
deep brown, and not seldom as black as a typical negro or as 
light as a Polynesian or Malay. These light-coloured varieties 
are referable to individual variation, although sometimes occur- 
ring in whole families. In no case can they be said to be 
the result of a mixture of races. In fact, he declares that he 
never came in contact witha tribe of Papuans which gave him 
the impression of being the result of a crossing of different 
races. He is of opinion that a cross between the Papuan and 
Polynesian races is invariably reabsorbed into one or the other of 
these races by further crossing. He is also of opinion that the 
same thing occurs in the case of a mixture with Europeans. 
He also quotes the occurrence of light-coloured varieties 
among coloured races, and notably among the Cingalese who, he 
maintains, are as dark as Melanesians. He noticed the occur- 
rence of light-coloured individuals in nearly every tribe visited, 
but they were of more constant recurrence and in greater 
numbers on the south-east coast of New Guinea. Here also he 
noticed the strange fact that not seldom a light-coloured tribe 
was sandwiched between two other tribes much darker than 
itself. He found the Papuan skin as smooth and softas that of 
EKuropeans. 
1Tb. p. 34. 
H 
