13 
physiognomy of some of the present Negroes, as far as bony 
structure is concerned, now approximates to that of Europeans. 
And he rightly intimates that such an alteration must obviously 
be the result of climate, education, and other external causes ; 
for if it were produced by any intermixture of blood, it would 
be apparent at once by an alteration in colour also. Changes 
of an exactly opposite nature may be equally remarked. 
Dr. Carpenter says: — “ Want, squalor, and ignorance have 
a special tendency to induce that diminution of the cranial 
portion of the skull, and that increase of the facial, which 
characterize the prognathous type, as cannot but be observed 
by any one who takes an accurate and candid survey of the 
condition of the most degraded part of the population of the 
great towns of this country ; and as is seen to be the case 
with regard to the lowest of our Irish immigrants. - ’ - ’* It is 
well known, indeed, that after the English forces had, in 1641 
and 1689, driven away the native Irish into the extreme west 
and north-west districts of Ireland, where they became exposed 
to hunger, ignorance, and all the elements of uncivilized life, 
they so degenerated physically that their descendants can, at 
the present moment, be distinguished from their countrymen 
in the adjoining parts by their exceptionally projecting jaws, 
high cheek-bones, depressed noses, and bandy legs. Such 
are the operations of nature on the same race when placed 
under different external conditions of human life ! 
19. Admitting', however, on these general considerations, 
that climate, food, and newly-acquired habits of life may have 
exercised aphysical influence upon some of the early descendants 
of primeval man, it is, nevertheless, very questionable whether 
those extremely abnormal types which now mark the Negro, 
mor© particularly the jet-black pigment of his skin and his 
wool-like fleece of hair, could ever have been thus produced. 
20. For, if so, one might reasonably have looked for a 
development of similar physical characteristics within the vast 
territories of North and South America, where the same tropical 
heats, fluviatile swamps, jungle damps, are to be found, and 
where all the same barbarous conditions of human life must 
have been in existence for many ages. Yet no such charac- 
teristics are discoverable. There is not a single native tribe 
from Terra del Fuego to the Rocky Mountains or Greenland 
snows which really corresponds with the Negro variety. 
21. Indeed, coming even to Africa itself, how can we, on 
this principle, account for the fact that in certain parts the 
white and black races have lived for centuries unchanged in 
* Carpenter’s Principles of Human Physiology , p. 858. 
