17(5 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



race of Man manifests more or less considerable range in 

 its skin colour. It is markedly so in the case of the 

 North American Indians, in which it varies from pale 

 olive yellow to dark brownish yellow. And with the 

 negro the variation is even more marked still, for in the 

 Mozambique region alone, Froberville distinguished 

 the presence of as many as thirty-one different shades 

 ranging from dusky or yellow brown to sooty black. 

 Similarly, among the Arabs, as is well known, considerable 

 variation is apparent, and the existence of even jet-black 

 races* have been recorded. 



We are not justified in the absence of chemical evidence 

 in believing that these various shades are simply expres- 

 sions of greater or less dilution or concentration of one 

 pigment colour. Analogy would rather lead us to believe 

 that each shade is a definite entity, due possibly to 

 different ferments or chromogens, or even to different 

 pairs of these in association with each other. And when 

 we bear in mind Froberville's observation mentioned 

 above, and assuming that each of the thirty-one shades 

 is a definite chemical entity, how are we to know, in the 

 absence of genetic investigation and chemical analysis, 

 how many of these shades are carried by any one negro 

 of the darker hue of colour ? If his colour is not an 

 elementary matter of one simple pigment, but is due to a 

 mixture of three, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty 

 different pigments, obviously the problem is much more 

 complex than the Biometrician imagines. Unto him the 

 injunction might be uttered to remember that : " There 

 is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in his 

 philosophy," even though it is salted with a great 

 desire to formulate simple and easy predictions for 

 the Mendelian. And, similarly, if the European is 

 equally complex in his colour constitution, and is carrying 

 a series of ferments and one chromogen, or a series of 

 chromogens and one ferment, of such a nature, that while 

 he is "colourless " himself, he none the less possesses the 

 power of influencing the colour of his offspring when he is 



* The shegya Arabs, south of Dongola, on the White Nile. On the 

 authority of Waddington. 



