SECT. I.] CLIMATE. 37 



quently occurs that strangers rapidly die in a country where 

 malaria prevails, whilst the natives live and apparently thrive 

 facts we shall presently mention and it seems to make no 

 difference whether the strangers belong to the same type or not 

 as the natives. We may instance the fact that the native 

 Peruvian thrives and remains free of pulmonary complaints at 

 an altitude from 7000 to 15000 feet above the level of the sea, 

 which, as in Quito, is frequent destructive to the white. 1 Set- 

 ting aside extreme cases, such as a sudden change of all 

 essential conditions of life, nothing justifies the assertion that 

 man transplanted into a foreign clime must either die or remain 

 as he is. If man can bear the transportation into an essentially 

 different climate, his organism will experience certain modifica- 

 tions, and it is not to be expected that the change should 

 not be as externally perceptible as it is in many animals. 

 D'Orbigny 2 goes so far as to assert that, in Peru, at the alti- 

 tude above mentioned, the trunk is changed by the influence 

 of respiration, the body is short but compact, whilst the in- 

 habitants of the damp lowlands are more slender in form. 

 Without entirely assenting to this view, we must admit that 

 external conditions, especially such as approach the limits be- 

 yond which man could not exist, considerably alter the physio- 

 logical process ; and we must not wonder if, in the course of 

 several generations, a corresponding change is effected in the 

 external form. It is as yet uncertain whether such alterations 

 occur within a comparatively short period and are arrested at a 

 certain point, 3 or whether, like some wild plants changed into 

 varieties by cultivation, the change proceeds at first slowly and 

 afterwards with great rapidity both may possibly occur under 

 different circumstances. 



Volney 4 says, that the Negro physiognomy resembles a face 

 acted upon by the light of the sun and heat, exhibiting over- 

 hanging eyebrows, half-closed eyelids, raised cheeks, and pro- 

 jecting jaws. We cannot subscribe to the explanation given 



1 " Stevenson, Kr., in Arauco/' ii, p. 174, 1826. 



2 "L'Homine Americain," i, pp. 96, 113, 1839. 



3 " Lyell, " Elements of Geology/' 7th ed., ch. 37. 



4 " Voyage en Syrie et en Egypte," i, p. 70. 



