OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 463 



der over the plains, go quite naked, and are consequently 

 always exposed to the perpendicular rays of the sun. I 

 could never observe that, in the same individual, those parts 

 of the body which were covered were less dark than those 

 in contact with a warm and humid air. We everywhere 

 perceive that the colour of the American depends very 

 little on the local position in which we see him. 



" The Mexicans, as we have already observed, are more 

 swarthy than the Indians of Quito and New Granada, who 

 inhabit a climate completely analogous ; and we even see 

 that the tribes dispersed to the north of the Rio Gila are less 

 brown than those in the neighbourhood of the kingdom of 

 Guatimala. This deep colour continues to the coast 

 nearest to Asia. But under 54^ 10' of North latitude, at 

 Cloak Bay, in the midst of copper-coloured Indians, with 

 small long eyes, there is a tribe with large eyes, European 

 features, and a skin less dark than that of our peasantry *." 



How does it happen, that the same sun, which makes 

 the African black, tinges the American of a copper colour ? 

 and that the dark hue, which might possibly be produced 

 by heat, in the equatorial regions, should be found also in 

 the cold and inhospitable tracts of Tierra del Fucgo, and 

 the most northern part of the continent ? The absence ot 

 white races can surely not be ascribed to the want of suffi- 

 ciently cold climates. Bougainville found the thermo- 

 meter, in the middle of summer, 54^° in lat. 52° S. ; and 

 Messrs. Banks and Solander, and their attendants, had 

 nearly perished altogether from the cold, in an excursion in 

 Tierra del Fuego, in the middle of the summer. Two of 

 the servants were actually lost f. 



A very cursory survey of the globe will shew us that the 

 same regions have been occupied by men of different races, 

 without any interchange of characters, in many instances, 

 for several centuries. The Moors and Negroes are found 

 together in Africa 5 Europeans, Negroes, and Americans, 

 in north and South America ; Celts, Germans, and Slavons, 



♦ Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spainj v.i. p. I4O — 145. 

 f IlAWKEsvvouTn's Collection, v. ii- ch. 4. 



