EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 213 



and this even in its osseous structure. About two hundred 

 years ago, a number of people were driven by a barbarous 

 policy from the counties of Antrim and Down, in Ireland, 

 towards the sea-coast, where they have ever since been 

 settled, but in unusually miserable circumstances even for 

 Ireland ; and the consequence is, that they exhibit peculiar 

 features of the most repulsive kind, projecting jaws with 

 large open mouths, depressed noses, high cheek bones, and 

 bow legs, together with an extremely diminutive stature. 

 These, with an abnormal slenderness of the limbs, are the 

 outward marks of a low and barbarous condition all over the 

 world ; it is particularly seen in the Australian aborigines. 

 On the other hand, the beauty of the higher ranks in England 

 is very remarkable, being, in the main, as clearly a result of 

 good external conditions. " Coarse, unwholesome, and ill- 

 prepared food," says Buffon, " makes the human race degene- 

 rate. All those people who live miserably are ugly and ill- 

 made. Even in France, the country people are not so beau- 

 tiful as those who live in towns ; and I have often remarked 

 that in those villages where the people are richer and better 

 fed than in others, the men are likewise more handsome, and 

 have better countenances." He might have added, that ele- 

 gant and commodious dwellings, cleanly habits, comfortable 

 clothing, and being exposed to the open air only as much as 

 health requires, co-operate with food in increasing the elegance 

 of a race of human beings. 



Variations also arise, through inexplicable causes, amidst 

 a state of things generally permanent. They tend most to 

 occur among the humbler families of plants and animals, but 

 also frequently take place in the very highest. A notable 

 instance of variety- production in an animal family by no 

 means low, is often referred to, as having happened under the 

 observation of persons still alive to attest it. On a New 

 England farm there originated, in the latter part of the last 

 century, a variety of sheep with unusually short legs, which 

 was kept up by breeding, on account of the convenience in 

 that country of having sheep which are unable to leap over 

 low fences. The starting and maintaining a breed of cattle, 



