02 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1744. 



On the contrary, the customs and ways of life in use among the Europeans, 

 and other nations of fair complexions, contribute to render their skins whiter 

 than they otherwise would be, or than they were, in all probability, originally. 

 These customs seem to be, an almost constant confinement, or rather imprison- 

 ment, from the open air ; warm and soft cloaths ', warm beds ; sitting by fires ; 

 the custom of bathing, much in use formerly ; a more succulent and nourishing 

 diet ; excess in strong liquors ; frequent sipping of warm thin liquors ; and, in 

 general, more luxurious and effeminate lives ; all which, with the absence of 

 the sun, or defences from it, tend to soften, moisten, and relax the fibres of the 

 body, and to render the fluids more thin and watery ; and consequently the 

 membranes composed of them, such as the skin is, must be more clear and 

 transparent ; on which we have shown its whiteness depends ; and accordingly 

 we constantly see that people of such constitutions, or ways of life among us, are 

 always the whitest. We might indeed consider the effects of cold on the skin in 

 these northern climes, where the people are white, were it not that those who 

 are the fairest among them, are the least exposed to it, and seldom or never feel 

 its effects ; but the whiteness of their complexions seems rather to be occasioned 

 by muffling themselves up against the cold, than from being exposed to its in- 

 fluence : for, as the cuticula is a sort of clothing to the other membranes of the 

 body, and, by preserving their whiteness, serves, besides its numerous other 

 uses, to keep up a uniformity and harmony in the colovirs of people ; so there is 

 no doubt, but that the cloaths with which we cover it, preserve its whiteness, or 

 render it whiter, as every fair-one knows : so that the different customs of dif- 

 ferent nations, in this respect, will tend very much, besides other causes, to 

 make that alteration and diversity so observable in their complexions. So that 

 it seems to be but a small objection, if any at all, to this proposition, that the 

 natives of Canada, though but a cold and northern clime, are of a swarthy co- 

 lour, while others, in the same latitude in Europe, are white ; for the customs 

 and ways of life of these last seem very much to increase, if not occasion, the 

 whiteness of their colours ; whereas the hard lives, and savage customs of those 

 Canada Indians, especially their going quite naked all over, seem to have no 

 tendency to soften their skins, or refine their comjjlexions ; not to mention their 

 custom of intermixing with the captive women of southern nations. But as the 

 Canada Indians are the most northern, so they are the palest of all Indians. 



Hence it will appear, that the power of the sun's heat in hot countries, and its 

 more immediate application to the body, or the increase of its force, by the na- 

 ture of the soil, or ways of life, is the remote cause of the blackness, and the 

 different degrees of blackness, of the inhabitants of the torrid zone : whereas the 

 luxurious customs, and the effeminate lives, of the several nations of white 

 people, in the northern climes, are the remote causes of their respective fair 

 complexions. 



