214 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I. 



also a regular and gradual transition of features and colour 

 into the Negro-type perceptible, especially in Tozar ; " and if 

 it were possible to bring from these countries an ethnological 

 collection to Europe, the greatest sceptic would feel convinced 

 that time and locality alone are the causes of these fluctuating 

 differences." 1 We attach, however, but little weight to this 

 gradual fusion of both types which presents itself to the tra- 

 veller, since it can scarcely be doubted that North and Central 

 Africa contains a great number of mixed populations. It is, 

 however, more important to observe that the whole South 

 African family, where we have no reason to suppose a sufficient 

 admixture of northern elements, form, with regard to their 

 cranial development, a well-defined intermediate link between 

 the black and the white races. 



Whilst admitting that a considerable number of African 

 peoples, even the inhabitants between the Senegal and the Niger, 

 owe their deviations from the pure Negro type to an admixture of 

 elements from a higher race ; still it remains clear, that on the 

 one hand these mongrels do not become extinct, as is usually 

 the case in the hybrids of some species of animals, nor lose 

 the acquired type by reversion, but preserve it : and that on the 

 other hand, the attempt to explain all considerable deviations 

 from the pure Negro type, which occur generally among African 

 peoples by intermixture, may be supported by preconceived 

 theories, but not by actual facts. It would not be difficult to 

 indicate as great a number of different types in other parts 

 of the globe. We shall, however, confine ourselves to a few ex- 

 amples, which plainly show that these types are nowhere so per- 

 fectly distinct as to be considered as specifically different. 

 Races decidedly different, dwell, no doubt, in many places near 

 each other in the same climate ; for instance, on the Senegal, 

 Moors and Negroes ; in many of the Polynesian islands and in 

 the South Sea, Malays and Polynesians, beside Negro-like 

 populations ; in Europe, Lapps and Scandinavians, etc. This 

 shows that climate alone can hardly change in a very great de- 

 gree the type of a people, that it may be one of the agents, 



1 Davis, " Evenings in rny tent," ii, p. 3, 1854. 



