22 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



so great is the mass of evidence showing that humidity has beem 

 an efficient agent in producing fairness that I must hold to the belief 

 that there is something in the views which I have just attempted to ex- 

 press. Yet, whatever may have been the causes which have given rise- 

 to the diversity of complexion that exists among mankind, it is clear 

 that the colour of each race is now so fixed, that climatic influences 

 change it very slowly. Neither the negro nor the white man on this- 

 continent has varied much in the direction of the Indian. Both 

 white and negro have, however, been here only a few centuries. A 

 much longer time has elapsed since the populous and frozen North 

 sent her barbarian hordes across Rhene and the Danaw to destroy 

 the Roman empire, but yet, wherever we have historical reasons 

 for expecting to discover traces of German blood, we find a 

 relatively large number of blondes. The land of the conquered 

 countries, as a matter of course, fell into the hands of the German 

 invaders, and from them sprang a new aristocracy. It is remarkable 

 that, to this day, the nobility and gentry of every part of Christian 

 Europe are exceptionally fair. The conquerors naturally settled in. 

 the greatest numbers in the most fertile parts ; it is precisely in the- 

 mountains and the other comparatively infertile districts that the 

 brunette whites are most numerous. In Switzerland, for example, 

 there is a greater percentage of blondes in the more level parts in the 

 centre, than in Mount Jura on the west, or the Rhaetian Alps on the 

 east. Similar facts meet us in England and France. "Wherever there 

 is reason to believe that there has been a settlement of Germans or 

 Scandinavians, the complexions are to this day comparatively fair. 

 The nine centuries that have elapsed since the Northmen settled in 

 Normandy have not made their descendants as dark as the neighbour- 

 ing Bretons ; nor have thirteen hundred years made the West Saxon 

 of Somerset and Gloucester similar in complexion to the Welshman 

 of Glamorgan and Caermarthen. 



Facts like these have led many ethnologists and anthropologists to 

 conclude, perhaps, too hastily, that colour is the least variable of all 

 the characters that mark a race. This, if true, leads with consider- 

 able probability, to the hitherto little noticed, but most important 

 conclusion, that the original seat of the Aryan race was in Europe, 

 and on or near the shores of the Baltic Sea. I propose now to ask 

 your attention while I show how this conclusion follows, and very 



