COLOURATION 45 



effects of climate on the skin during individual lives, 

 especially in the white races, and we are accustomed 

 to associate the dusky races with the action of the 

 sun through long generations. A general survey of 

 the population of the earth, however, shows that 

 there is no correspondence between the lines of 

 temperature and the colouration. The want of 

 agreement is plain throughout the world, but is 

 especially conspicuous in the indigenous peoples of 

 North and South America where there is no relation 

 between colouration and climate. Tropical Brazil, 

 for instance, contains the lightest indigenous popu- 

 lation of America, and a very dark race stretches 

 down the Pacific Coast to the extreme south of 

 Patagonia. In every part of the world, the Jews, 

 under the influence of economic and political condi- 

 tions, as well as from racial aptitude, have passed 

 much of their lives indoors or in the narrow and 

 sunless streets of cities, precisely under those condi- 

 tions that we expect to find associated with paleness 

 in individual lives, and yet the Jews, on the average, 

 are always nearly thirty per cent, darker than the 

 outdoor peoples amongst whom they live. The 

 effects of tanning are not inherited, for the children 

 of sailors are not darker than those of artisans of the 

 same race. On the other hand, especially among 

 white people, there is some connection between alti- 

 tude and pigmentation ; inhabitants of highlands 

 and mountains are on the average blonder than their 

 kinsmen of the plains. 



The colour of the hair and eyes frequently changes 

 with age, being lighter in young children than in 

 adults, but it has been found impossible to correlate 



