450 CAUSES OF THE VARIETIES 



colour*.'* Le Cat mentions a woman near Paris, in whom 

 the abdomen became black at each pregnancy, and after- 

 wards recovered its colour; in another, the same change 

 occured in the legf. 



Camper dissected at Groningen, a young woman who 

 died in child-bed : her abdomen, and the areolae round the 

 nipples, were of a deep black : the face, arms, and legs, 

 were of a snowy whiteness J. 



The species of domestic fowls in the East Indies, with 

 black periosteum, aifords a further proof that the operation 

 of the sun's rays is not a necessary circumstance to the pro- 

 duction of colour in animal bodies. 



If we take the trouble of examining the races in any par- 

 ticular division of the world, we shall quickly find that the 

 opinion which ascribes their distinguishing characters to 

 climate, must be given up ; that the same race inhabits the 

 most different regions, preserving in all an uniformity of cha- 

 racter ; that different races are found in the same countries; 

 and that those, who have changed their native abodes 

 for situations, in which, according to the hypothesis, they 

 ought to have undergone a complete metamorphosis, still 

 retain their original distinctions. 



In the north of Europe, as also in the north of Asia and 

 America, that is, in countries nearest to the pole, in which, 

 according to the opinion above stated, the whitest races 

 ought to be found, we have very brown and black people : 

 they are much darker coloured than any other Europeans. 

 The Moors in Africa, and the Arabs of the desert, are born 

 with a white skin, and continue fair unless adventitious 

 causes are applied. But the Laplanders and Greenlanders, 

 the Eskimaux, Samoiedes, Ostiacs, Tschutski, &c., who 

 hardly ever feel a moderate heat from the rays of the sun, 

 are very dark. They appear to be all of the same race, who 

 have extended and multiplied along the coasts of the North 



* On the Regular Gradation, p. 114. 

 t Traite de la Couleur de la Feau Iluniainc' 

 i Kkinere Schriften, v. i. st. 1. p. 47. 



