LECTURE VII. 189 



Caledonian, do not, with, regard to the osseous system, ex- 

 hibit the differences which arise subsequently.* The new-born 

 Negro child has not the colour of its parents ; it is reddish 

 nut-brown, and the redness is less vivid than in the case of a 

 new-born white child. The colour soon becomes slate-grey, and 

 more or less rapidly corresponds to that of the parents, ac- 

 cording to the surrounding media among which the child grows 

 up. In the Sudan the development of the colouring matter is 

 generally finished within a year, in Egypt within three years. 

 The hair of the Negro child is at first rather chestnut-brown 

 than black, it is straight, and only curled at the ends. I have 

 not been able exactly to determine the extent of the fontanelles, 

 but there does not seem to exist a measurable difii"erence in 

 this respect from those of the white child." (Burmeister re- 

 marks concerning the differences in new-born children. " The 

 hair is not crisp or black, but is of a chestnut colour, and has a 

 silky fineness. In growing, it becomes gradually darker, and 

 more crisp, until the time the child learns to walk, when the 

 hair is perfectly woolly. This reminds me of the down of 

 young birds in relation to the feathers of the hen.") 



"The first dentition," continues Pruner-Bey, '^commences 

 nearly at the same time as with us ; I have, however, also ob- 

 served cases of premature, as weU as of retarded dentition. 

 Lactation lasts never less than two years. On the completion 

 of the first dentition, we perceive already in the skull the 

 peculiar characters : the raised central line in the forehead, 

 the retreating chin, the slightly projected upper jaw, the flat 

 nose, the dazzling whiteness of the teeth, the prominent occi- 

 put. The young Negro possesses, however, a pleasant phy- 

 siognomy up to puberty, which commences in girls between 

 the tenth and thirteenth, and in boys between the thirteenth 



* This opinion of Pruner-Bey seems to me hazardous, and not founded on 

 sufficient observation. I have had no opportunity of examining a new-born 

 Neo-ro-child ; but in Blumenbach's Decas Craniorum there is such a figure, 

 whfch, at the first glance, shows the great length and narrowness of the 

 cranium, as well as prognathous jaws. When we take into consideration the 

 narrowness of the pelvis of the If egress, it must follow that the skuU of the 

 newborn Negro should present dimensions different from that of the Aiian 

 child. 



