COVERING OF THE HOUSE. 135 



true skin, or the part which forms the leather. 

 But we see that none of these are right that 

 the skin itself, properly so called, is alike in 

 the whole human race, that is, it would form 

 leather of the same color in all ; and that the 

 color might be removed, though not without 

 much pain, leaving one individual as white 

 and as dark as another. 



What good this color does is, I believe, un- 

 known ; or why all mankind could not just as 

 well have been left wholly without it, and thus 

 all have been really flesh-colored. In some 

 parts of the skin, in the European race, there 

 seems, in fact, to be but very little of it. It is 

 only on the cheek, and perhaps the lips, that 

 the color seems to differ much from that of the 

 real skin itself. 



I know that there have been a great many 

 conjectures about the uses of this coloring mat- 

 ter ; but there is very little true knowledge 

 abroad concerning it. We know, indeed, that 

 a dark skin, as it suffers the heat of the body 

 to escape more rapidly than a light one, ren- 

 ders a person cooler in hot weather, in hot 

 climates ; but it would be difficult to believe 

 that this is the principal reason for its existence. 



