33 
The Chairman— Oh no. It is quite the contrary. The Hindoo has a par- 
ticularly thin skull. 
Mr. M‘Arthur. — All I know is that I have myself seen Hindoos exposed 
bareheaded for hours together to the most intense heat of the sun. I have 
seen young men and children, old men and women, without the slightest 
particle of covering for their heads, exposed in this way for a length of time 
to an intense heat 
The Chairman. — That is quite true. 
Mr. M‘ Arthur.— And I have been told as a fact by a gentleman who has 
long resided in India that the skull of a Hindoo is very thick 
The Chairman. — The truth is just the reverse, and has been established in 
discussing the climatic argument in the case of the Negro. The argument 
you have just employed was met by the statement, which was well authen- 
ticated, that the natives of India have very thin skulls, and yet are equally 
able to bear exposure to the sun with the Negro. 
Mr. M‘ Arthur. — W ell, it is an extraordinary fact that they do bear that 
exposure so well. As to the influence of climate, the same gentleman who told 
me this is a member of this Society, and has been for many years a missionary 
in India. He also tells me that the aboriginal natives of India, who inhabit the 
higher lands, are invariably comparatively fair, so that just in proportion as 
you come down south and have a hotter climate and a stronger sun you have 
the faces darkening. He says again, that some of the Hindoos are par- 
ticularly fair, while others are entirely black or nearly so, and he also tells 
me that of the Brahmins, who never intermarry with other castes, some are 
fair while others are sometimes black, and that, as a rule, the better-class 
natives, who can afford to live indoors and who are not compelled to undergo 
exposure, are perfectly fair, whereas those who are constantly exposed to the 
sun are, in the great majority of cases, and especially in Southern India, 
almost all dark or black. That shows that climate and exposure has a very 
powerful effect upon the colour, and also upon the facial character, because 
there can be no question that we have the latter fact proved in Connemara in 
Ireland. In my opinion, then, we have very good ground for arguing that 
peculiarity of a native race, whatever it may be, arises more from the 
influence of the climate, from long-established savage or semi-savage life, and 
from the laborious pursuits they have been compelled to engage in than from 
any of the accidental circumstances referred to by Mr. Titcomb. The one 
theory is quite as probable as the other. (Hear, hear.) 
Rev. S. M. Mathew. — I did not come here prepared to discuss this 
subject. I came simply as a listener ; but having been invited, as a stranger, 
to say a few words, I will endeavour to do so. I saw the other day, I think 
on Friday evening, in one of the leading newspapers, the assertion that where 
Scripture and science seem to contradict each other, Scripture was wrong 
and science was right. But if you take, say the science of geology, and 
review the former grounds on which its axioms were supposed to be founded 
some forty or thirty years back, and compare them with the present grounds 
upon which geology is based, you will find a very striking difference indeed 
VOL. V. D 
