394 ON THE EFFECT OF COAL FIRES ON THE EYES. 



Highland regiment, the two races would have been pronounced Goths 

 and Celts beyond all recovery. 



I must, however, frankly acknowledge here, that I am aware in 

 what degree this circumstance may be quoted against my own hypo- 

 thesis: inasmuch, as it may be asked, how, if the physiognomy 

 undergoes so great an alteration as I have said, the gipseys retain their 

 peculiar features unchanged ? I answer, that I deny the fact of their 

 remaining unchanged ; as it is evident that they are at this day less 

 dark than their ancestors who first arrived here : for Bishop Heber 

 remarks, that the gipseys which he saw in India were blacker than 

 those of England. Their retaining so much of their original character 

 in Europe must be attributed to the savage life which they always 

 lead ; and I have no hesitation in stating my opinion, that if a colony 

 of gipseys would attach themselves to the soil, in any one spot, and 

 become an agricultural and civilised people, even though unmixed, 

 they would soon change their Asiatic character for one more European. 

 And, however absurd the idea may at first appear, I am satisfied from 

 analogy, and a comparison of facts, that, had a colony of Senegal 

 negroes established themselves on the banks of the Thames or the 

 Rhine, two thousand years ago, and assumed the habits of civilised 

 agriculturists, their descendants at this day would scarcely have 

 retained a trace of their African origin. 



But, to return to our survey. If the melanic complexion occurs in 

 the north, it is but very rarely. The grey eye uniformly predominates 

 throughout the whole of the Grampians, with the exception of the 

 towns, for a hundred and fifty miles, until we approach Kinross, where 

 the coal-fields again commence, and there a marked change takes 

 place ; for the eye is not merely occasionally dark, as in other places, 

 but here generally so. And these observations will perhaps explain a 

 fact mentioned by Dr. Macculloch, in his chapter upon the Origin and 

 Races of the Highlanders, vol. iv., when speaking of the female beauty 

 of Scotland, and making handsome mention of Hay, Skye, and the 

 Highland borders of Perthshire, he concludes : — 



" And generally it is true, that the beauty of the females predomi- 

 nates on the line which allows the high and low countries to intermix." 

 Now, as he gives the fact from his own observation, there can be no 

 reason to doubt its accuracy, though his mode of accounting for it can 

 by no means be admitted. But it is deserving of notice, that the 

 Highland borders of Perthshire will just occur where the light eye of 

 the northern country merges in the dark tint of the coal districts : and 



