ANr.viAi.s. 409 



Indians. Although they live in a climate the same, or even more 

 northerly than ours, yet they are found to be of complexions very 

 diiferent from those of Europe. But it must be considered, that 

 they live continually exposed to the sun ; that they use many 

 methods to darken their skins by art, painting them with red ochre, 

 and anointing them with the fat of bears. Had they taken, for a 

 succession of several generations, the same precautions to bright- 

 en their colour that an European does, it is very pi-obable that 

 they would in time come to have similar complexions, and per- 

 haps, dispute the prize of beauty. 



The extremity of cold is not less productive of a tawny com- 

 plexion than that of heat. The Tiatives of the arctic circle, as 

 was observed, are all brown ; and those that lie most to the 



other hordes of Eastern Siberia. The Chinese resemble the Mongolian tribes 

 in this particular; but contrary to their practice the latter encourage the 

 ffrowth of beard. The custom of exterminating- the beard and hair on the 

 body is common among many of the dark nations, but this would not have 

 been attempted and could not be executed if nature had furnished them in 

 this article so plentifully as she has done the Europeans. 



There has been much controversy whether the native Americans have 

 beards or not; it is now completely ascertained that they have beards, but 

 weak and imperfect, and that the practice of exterminating them is general. 

 The genuine Negroes have very little beard or growth of hair over the body. 

 But the Sonth-Sea islanders are by no means deficient in these excrescences. 



An analogy similar to that between the hair and skin exists between the 

 latter and the iris of the eye. New born children in Europe have generally 

 lighi. eyes and Imir, and both gradually darken in those of dark complexion. 

 In old persons as the hair turns grey the eye loses a portion of its colour. In 

 the albino there is an entire deficiency of proper colouring matter, so that 

 the iris has a reddish hue from the colour of the blood ni the capillaiies. 

 The same sympathetic variations in the skirj, hair, and eyes are also obser. 

 vable in other animals. 



The principal colours of the human eye are blue, passing to greyish in the 

 lighter tints, a sort of obscure orange, a kind of middle tint between blue and 

 orange, sometimes very green in red-haired persons ; and lastly, brown, verg. 

 ing to hazel on the one side, and black on the other. To these the reddish eye 

 of the albino may be added. These varieties occur constantly in individuals of 

 the same race and family. Sometimes they are confined to particular tribes 

 of the same nation. The Gothlanders of Sweden are described with light 

 hair and greyish eyes. The Finlanders with yellow hair and brown eyes, 

 and the Laplanders with both black. Blue eyes with yellow hair have 

 always marked the Germanic tribes. Blue eyes with black or dark hair form 

 a combination nf)t uncommon among the tribes of Koordistan, and others of 

 the Caucasian race, who inhabit elevated situations in Asia. The iris is dark 

 in all the coloured varietitis, but in the Negro it is so black as to be distill, 

 finished with ditficulty from the pupil. 



2 M 



