86 INTRODUCTION. 



gradual from one to the other, that it is impossible to draw tl e 

 line of demarkation ; therefore, say the advocates of the on< 

 theory, the varieties of man may belong to one species. 13ut we 

 know that this same gradation is seen throughout the whole animal 

 and vegetable world. 



There are many animals intermediate between the orders, families 

 and genera of the Vertebrata, — between mammalia and birds, 

 between birds and reptiles, between reptiles and fishes, both living 

 ami fossil — which require all the acuteness of the experienced nat- 

 uralist to class exactly. Many flowers, known in their typical forms 

 to belopg to different species, can hardly be distinguished in their 

 varieties; the same plant has borne flowers formerly considered char- 

 acteristic of three distinct genera. 



This will be rendered of more importance if it appear that the 

 races are permanent, and that color is not dependent on climate. 

 Seven hundred and thirty-three years after Noah*s debarkation from 

 the ark, (to follow the generally received chronology,) a nation of 

 blacks occupied the borders of Egypt; now, if these were .Negroes, 

 (as they doubtless were, for we have their features on the monu- 

 ments,) for the last two thousand years climate has not produced 

 such a race, as, according to this idea, must have been produced in a 

 third of that time. Seventeen hundred years ago a colony of Jews 

 migrated to the coast of Malabar, and settled among black races. 

 Dr. Buchanan, in his travels, states that they are as perfect Caucasians 

 as ever.* If, then, seventeen hundred years has not changed these 

 people, in that hot climate, is it probable that seven hundred and 

 thirty-three years have changed a white man into a Negro? A 

 Portuguese colony, which settled on the coast of Congo, has now 

 become lost by amalgamation with the black races ; but, by a sup- 

 pression of a part of the facts, the impression has been given that 

 they were changed into Negroes by the effects of the climate, while 

 the true cause of their extinction was the intermarriage of a few 

 whites for fifteen generations among a large body of blacks. Yet 

 this, and such as this, has been adduced as a proof that climate 

 changes races. The Moors have inhabited Northern Africa from 

 time immemorial, and yet they have made no approach to the Negro, 

 any more than the Negro has to them. The American Indian, under 



* There are white Jews in Malabar ; where they are black, an intermix- 

 ture with dark races may be traced. This fact is carefully kept out of 

 sight by those who wish to use the " Black Jews of Malabar " on the other 

 side of the question. [Dr. Nott ; Proceedings of Am. Association for 

 Adv. of Science. Charleston, 1850. p. 98.] 



