29G PROF. T. MCKENNY HUGHES, F.R.S., ON 



observing or forming an opinion about from the observations of 

 others, as well as from more general considerations, was that the 

 North American Indians did not represent a stage in the upward 

 progress of a race from savagery, but that they belonged to a very 

 high type of humanity which had somehow been cut off from the 

 oppoi-tunities and appliances of civilization, and had had a hard 

 struggle for existence against the forces of nature. 



Mr. Howard has referred to some veiy good examples of the 

 formation of a race, mixed in its origin, but attaining to characters 

 in common from the blending of the original elements, and isolation 

 from any further strong admixture. Mr. Rouse has emphasized 

 my remarks on the modern American type, which seems to approach 

 that of the North American Indian ; but in all these tentative 

 suggestions and speculative ideas we must bear in mind that, owing 

 to the enormous influx of Scandinavians and Germans, America is 

 in the main only carrying on and reproducing the same mixture as 

 that from which in past ages the English race sprang. The point 

 of my paper was that, tracing back the history of the British race 

 as far as we can, we learn that it has been formed by the succes- 

 sive introduction of many different elements, and that the result of 

 this mixture is seen in existing characteristics of appearance and 

 disposition which have become more or less stereotyped ; but that 

 the elements, when they can be discriminated, or the blend, when 

 it can be defined, may be regarded as marking a race, as distin- 

 guished from a nation which is only held together by the artificial 

 bonds of government ; and that the indications of racial characters 

 obtained by observation of the colour, physiognomy, etc., of the 

 people we meet in the world, offer valuable and interesting matter 

 for study. 



With regard to the suggestion that there may be a physiological 

 explanation of the origin of the red hair, I suppose we must 

 accept that as in a sense true not only for the red hair, but also 

 for the dark colour of the skin, it is the province of the physi- 

 ologist to investigate those subtle changes in the pigments to which 

 the colours of the hair and skin are due, but I hardly think that 

 we can refer the sporadic occurrence of red jieople among dark, or 

 dark among fair, to any direct and exceptional infhicnfo of a 

 physiological kind brought to bear upon the individuals affected. 

 These appearances require for their explanation the consideration 

 of the laws which govern prepotency of transmission, reversion of 

 type and .so on. 



