176 Søren Hansen. 



skvills, but the individual variations are here so considerable (from 

 630 to 900), that there do not seem to be any grounds for attaching 

 any importance to this point. 



The question of the colour of the races of mankind is undoubt- 

 edly one of the most difficult problems in anthropology. Quite 

 apart from the admixture of subjectivity in the different observers' 

 conception and description of the often extremely delicate nuances 

 in the human complexion, iris, and hair, the numerous individual 

 variations and the dependency of the colour on sun and wind 

 serve to complicate the question in such a degree that it is a matter 

 of extreme difficult}^ to establish an accurate formulation of the 

 colour of a race. And in fact the latest French school has, in view 

 of these difficulties, tried to facilitate the determination of colour 

 by abandoning the use of Broca's well-know^n and formerly much 

 used standard tables^), and proposing a simple scale — with quite 

 a small number of colours — which it requires no special practice 

 to use and which gives quite sufficient information as to these pro- 

 portions^). 



Unfortunately the Expedition has not been able to use this 

 method to any great extent, but by oral communication with its 

 members we have succeeded in supplementing the records in such 

 a way that the following account must be regarded as correct in 

 all essential particulars. 



The colour of the skin on the uncovered surfaces, that is especi- 

 ally on the face, is in general yellowish brown with a few exceptions, 

 shading off now into yellow, now into brown. On the trunk and 

 the other covered parts of the body the skin is lighter, with a 

 bluish tinge, whence it might well be described as light olive. The 

 parts which are darkly pigmented also in European tribes, viz., parti- 

 cularly the genitalia externa and the nipple with the areola, have 

 amongst the East Greenlanders a pronounced bluish tinge, which 

 merges into the yellowish-brown ground colour, or even prevails 

 over it to such an extent that the colour of the parts in question 

 must actually be designated as blue. — The women are consider- 

 ably^ lighter than the men. 



In this connection I must also mention that in new-born children 

 there has been observed in the sacro-lumbar region a distinct bluish- 



') In 'Instructions générales jjoiir les recherches anthropologiques'. 2. Ed. Paris 

 1879, and in 'Notes and Queries on Anthropolog}'' i)ubl. by the British Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science. London 1874. 



■-') Topinard: Anthropologie générale, j). IfOl. 



