OR, A TREATISE ON PILE. 77 



CHAPTER IV. 



OF THE COLOR OF PILE. On the head of man there are various tints and shades of 

 gradation from black to brown, red, yellow and white. 



OF MELANIC* OR BLACK HAIR. Dr. Prichard, who contends for the unity of mankind, 

 describes three varieties, viz : the melanic, or black-haired, the Xanthous, or yellow-haired, 

 and the Albino, or white-haired. But he is entirely mistaken, for black hair belongs to 

 the cylindrical and the eccentrically elliptical-piled man, and is found with the oval-haired,f 

 and the Albino is found in two if not all three of these species. (See post.) 



OF THE ORIGINAL COLOR OF HAIR. Dr. Prichard considers the Melanic the natural 

 and original color of hair of the head of man.J 



Van Amringe, in answer, justly remarks, that the departure from the natural 

 course of birth, among negroes, is always from black to white, so that, according to this 

 theory, the red and yellow colors of hair are unaccounted for. 



Bulfon, with about as much reason, contended that white was the original color of pile, 

 which (he says) has been varied by climate, food and manners, to yellow, red, brown 

 and black. Other writers have imagined that originally there was but one colored fleece 

 on sheep, and that was black; and, strange to say, they date the multiplication of colors 

 to the time of the experiments of Jacob upon the sheep of Laban; overlooking the obvious 

 objection, that the promise to give the ring-stroked and grizzled implies that such varieties 

 at that time existed. 



A writer in an English annual of agriculture says that he has frequently had 12 to 14 

 black lambs in his flock, although he never kept a black ram or ewe , from which he 

 draws the conclusion that the original color of sheep was black, and that art alone has 

 produced white wool ; and he opines that were these animals turned wild they would 

 return again to their original color. A much more reasonable conclusion is, that his sheep 

 are hybrids, and that one ancestor, in a remote degree, was black. It is a well ascertained 

 fact that there are at the present time wild sheep that are white. No farmer purposely 

 plants red Indian corn (zea maize,) yet we have never seen a field of Indian corn where 

 there were not some red spikes. It is not an uncommon occurrence for both parents of 

 the oval-haired species, to have black hair, and for one of the children to have red hair. 



* From " Mclas," black or dark, neuter "melan." 



f Van Amringe is of opinion that , r ff ths of mankind have black pile. 



{ This is not an original idea of this gentleman. 



