EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 



145 



ings, cleanly habits, comfortable clothing, and being ex- 

 posed to the open air only as much as health requires, 

 co-operate with food in increasing the elegance of a race 

 ot human beings. 



Subject only to these modifying agencies, there is, as 

 has been said, a remarkable persistency in national fea- 

 tures and forms, insomuch that a single individual thrown 

 into a family different from himself is absorbed in it, and 

 ill trace of him lost after a few generations But while 

 there is such a persistency to ordinary observation, it 

 * T ould also appear that nature has a power ot producing 

 aew varieties, though this is only done rarely. Such nov- 

 elties of type abound in the vegetable world, are seen 

 .nore rarely in the animal circle, and perhaps are least 

 frequent of occurrence in our own race. There is a noted 

 instance in the production, on a New England farm, of a 

 variety of sheep with unusually short legs, which was 

 kept up by breeding, on account of the convenience in 

 that country of having sheep which are unable to jump 

 over low fences. The starting and maintaining a breed of 

 cattle, that is, a variety marked by some desirable peculi- 

 arity, are familiar to a large class of persons. It appears 

 only necessary, when a variety has been thus produced, 

 that a union should take place between individuals simi- 

 larly characterized in order to establish it. Early in the 

 last century, a man named Lambert was born in Suffolk, 

 with semi-homey excrescences of about half an inch long, 

 thickly growing all over his body. The peculiarity was 

 transmitted to his children, and was last heard of in a 

 third generation. The peculiarity of six fingers on the 

 hand and six toes on the feet, appears in like manner in 

 families which have no record or tradition of such a pecu- 

 liarity having affected them at any former period, and it is 

 then sometimes seen to descend through several genera- 

 tions. It was Mr. Lawrence's opinion that a pair in 

 which both parties were so distinguished might be the 

 progenitors of a new variety of the race who would be 

 thus marked in all future time. It is not easy to surmise 

 the causes which operate in producing such varieties. 

 Perhaps they are simply types in nature, possible to be 

 realized under certain appropriate conditions, but which 

 conditions are such as altogether to elude notice. I might 

 cite as examples of such possible types, the rise of whites 

 amongst the Negroes, the occurrence of the family of 



