CHAP; VII. 
the races of man. 
241 
Cr °ss, the first result is a heterogeneous mixture : 
thus Mr. Hunter, in describing the Santali or hill- 
tribes of India, says that hundreds of imperceptible 
gradations may be traced “ from the black, squat tribes 
“ of the mountains to the tall olive-coloured Brahman, 
“ 'Hth his intellectual brow, calm eyes, and high but 
“ Harrow head ; ” so that it is necessary in courts of 
justice to ask the witnesses whether they are Santalis 
° r Hindoos. 37 Whether a heterogeneous people, such 
as the inhabitants of some of the Polynesian islands, 
formed by the crossing of two distinct races, with few 
0r no pure members left, would ever become homo- 
8 e neous, is not known from direct evidence. But as 
"ith our domesticated animals, a crossed breed can 
Cei 'tainly, in the course of a few generations, be fixed 
a ud made uniform by careful selection, 38 we may infer 
^at the free and prolonged intercrossing during many 
generations of a heterogeneous mixture would supply 
the place of selection, and overcome any tendency to 
reversion, so that a crossed race would ultimately be- 
c °nie homogeneous, though it might not partake in an 
UfiUal degree of the characters of the two parent-races. 
Of all the differences between the races of man, the 
c °loiu- of the skin is the most conspicuous and one of 
the best marked. Differences of this kind, it was for- 
tVle rly thought, could be accounted for by long expo- 
8 u r e under different climates ; but Pallas first shewed 
that this view is not tenable, and he has been followed 
h)' almost all anthropologists. 39 The view has been 
'' ' The Armais of Rural Bengal,’ 1868, p. 134. 
1 The Variation of Animals and Wants under Domestication,’ vol. 
“• P. 95. 
39 Tallas, ‘Act. Acad. St. Fetersburgk,’ 1780, part ii. p. 69. He 
as followed by Rudolphi, in his ‘Beytriige zuv Authropologie,’ 1812. 
p a ex «ellent summary of the evidence is given by Godron, ‘He. 
Esptoe,’ 1859, vol. ii. p. 246, &c. 
VOL. I, 
R 
