297 



tion and progressive debilitation, as animals^ 

 in a state of domestication, pass from dark 

 to lighter colours. In plants and in animals, 

 accidental varieties, formed under our own eyes, 

 are become constant, and have been propa- 

 gated * without alteration : but nothing proves, 

 that in the present state of the human orga- 

 nization, the different races of black, yellow, 

 copper-coloured > and white men, when they 

 remain unmixed, deviate considerably from 

 their primitive type by the influence of climates, 

 of food, and other external agents. 



I shall have occasion to return to these general 

 considerations, when we shall ascend the vast 

 table-lands of the Cordilleras, which are four 

 or five times more elevated than the valley 

 of Caripe. I shall here only cite the authority 

 of Ulloa -f*. This learned man has seen the 



* For example, the sheep with very short legs, called 

 ancon sheep in Connecticut, and examined by Sir Everard 

 Home. This variety dates only from the year 1791. 



f n The Indians (Americans) are of a copper colour, 

 which by the action of the sun and the air grows darker, I 

 must remark, that neither heat nor cold produces any sen- 

 sible change in the colour, so that the Indians of the Cor- 

 dilleras of Peru are easily confounded with those of the hot- 

 test plains; and those who live under the line cannot be 

 distinguished, by the colour, from those who inhabit the for- 

 tieth degree of north and south latitude." Noticias Americ, 

 cap. 17, p. 307. No ancient author has so clearly stated 

 the two forms of reasoning, by which we still explain in our 



