60 ON BREEDING AND REARING AI^IMALS. 



that they are better enabled to endure cold wea- 

 ther, than they would if their faces and legs 

 were white, this is, on the clearest physical 

 principles, erroneous, and contrary to nature. 

 Thus we find in all the most northern climates, 

 that those animals which are of a dark colour, in 

 the warm seasons, change to white in the wdnter, 

 without which they could not endure the severe 

 cold they are doomed to encounter. Again, we 

 see the beneficence of our Great Creator has 

 given the native man of the burning climate of 

 Africa a black skin. Black absorbs and gives 

 out heat more rapidly than white ; as, in other 

 words, any body that is white, will retain the 

 heat which is engendered within it, much longer 

 than that which is black. Thus the white animal 

 in the frozen regions, is enabled to retain its 

 heat in a due degree, to preserve its health ; and 

 the black man, by a rapid emission of heat, is 

 protected against those dreadful fevers, the fre- 

 quent consequence of accumulated heat, by a 

 retentive white skin. It is this principle which 

 determines the difference in temperature of 

 soils. A black soil will, in a given time, and 

 in the same exposure to the sun, acquire 

 eight or ten degrees of Farenheit more than a 

 white; and on an exclusion of the sun, the 

 black will soon be reduced many degrees below 

 the white. (3* 



