IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 241 



either infertile, or less fertile than those which 

 take place between males and females of either 

 stock under the same circumstances. Some go 

 so far as to assert that no mixed breeds of man- 

 kind can maintain themselves without the assist- 

 tance of one or other of the parent stocks, and 

 that, consequently, they must inevitably be ob- 

 literated in the long run. 



Here, again, it is exceedingly difficult to obtain 

 trustworthy evidence and to free the effects of 

 the pure physiological experiment from adven- 

 titious influences. The only trial which, by a 

 strange chance, was kept clear of all such influences 

 the only instance in which two distinct stocks of 

 mankind were crossed, and their progeny inter- 

 married without any admixture from without 

 is the famous case of the Pitcairn Islanders, who 

 were the progeny of Bligh's English sailors by 

 Tahitian women. The results of this experiment, 

 as everybody knows, are dead against those who 

 maintain the doctrine of human hybridity, seeing 

 that the Pitcairn Islanders, even though they 

 necessarily contracted consanguineous marriages, 

 throve and multiplied exceedingly. 



But those who are disposed to believe in this 

 doctrine should study the evidence brought forward 

 in its support by M. Broca, its latest and ablest 

 advocate, and compare this evidence with that 

 which the botanists, as represented by a Gaertner, 

 or by a Darwin, think it indispensable to obtain 



180 



