ig6 The Descent of Man. Pabt 1. 



although larger thau freckles, and that these patches were never 

 affected by sun-burning, whilst the white parts of his skin 

 have on several occasions been much inflamed and blistered. 

 With the lower animals there is, also, a constitutional difference 

 in liability to the action of the sun between those parts of the 

 skin clothed with white hair and other parts.^* Whether the 

 saving of the skin from being thus burnt is of sufficient impor- 

 tance to account for a dark tint having been gradually acquired 

 by man through natural selection, 1 am unable to judge. If it 

 be so, we should have to assume that the natives of tropical 

 America have lived there for a much shorter time than the 

 negroes in Africa, or the Papuans in the southern parts of the 

 Malay archipelago, just as the lighter-coloured Hindoos have 

 resided in India for a shorter time than the darker aborigines of 

 the central and southern parts of the peninsula. 



Although with our present knowledge we cannot account for 

 the differences of colour in the races of man, through any 

 advantage thus gained, or from the direct action of climate ; yet 

 we must not quite ignore the latter agency, for there is good 

 reason to believe that some inherited effect is thus produced.'^* 



We have seen in the second chapter that the conditions of life 

 affect the development of the bodily frame in a direct manner, 

 and that the effects are transmitted. Thus, as is generally 

 admitted, the European settlers in the United States undergo a 

 slight but extraordinarily rapid change of appearance. Their 

 bodies and limbs become elongated ; and I hear from Col. 

 Bernys that during the late wax in the United States, good 

 evidence was afforded of this fact' by tlie ridiculous appearance 

 presented by the German regiments, when dressed in ready-made 

 clothes manufactured for the American market, and which were 

 much too long for the men in every way. There is, also, a con- 

 siderable body of evidence shewing that ip the Southern States 

 the house-slaves of the third generation present a markedly 

 different appeai-ance from the field-slaves."'' 



«■■ • Vai-iiition of Animals and settted in Georgia, have acquiiea in 



Plants under Domestication,' vol. ii. the course of two generations dark 



pp. 336, 337. hair and eyes. Mr. D. Fort-gf in- 



" See, for instance, Qiiatrefages forms me that the Quichuas m the 



(' Revue des Cours Soientifiques,' Andes vary greatly in colour, ac 



Oct. 10, 1868, p. 724) on the effects cording to'^the position of the vallevi 



of residence in Abyssinia and Arabia, inhabited by them, 

 and other analogous cases. Dr. "6 Harlan, 'Medical Researches, 



KoUe (' Der Mensch, seine Abstam- p. 532. Quatrefages (' Onite de 



mang,' &c., 1865, s. 99) states, on I'Espice Humaine,' 1861, p. 128) 



the authority of Khanikof, that the has collected much evidence on thi> 



greater nunilei' of German families head. 



