*

instincts of mankind, we find that they sink in character, and become physically degraded to a level with races whose features, at first sight, are very far removed. We need but to travel across the Irish Channel to see many groups of our Celtic fellow-subjects, who have been reduced by famine and disease to a degraded condition closely bordering on that of these savages." To the same effect remarks Professor Whitney, "Physical science is as yet far from having determined the kind, the rate, and the amount of modification which external conditions, as climate and mode of life, can introduce into a race-type; but that within certain undefined limits their influence is very powerful, is fully acknowledged. There is, to be sure, a party among zoologists and ethnologists who insist much upon the dogma of fixity of type,' and assert that all human races are original; but the general tendency of scientific opinion is in the other direction, toward the fuller admission of the variability of species. The first naturalists are still, and more than ever, willing to admit that all the differences now existing among human races may be the effects of variation from a single type, and that it is at least not necessary to resort to the hypothesis of different origins in order to explain them."

* Language, and the Study of Language, p. 376.

Two or three instances of change in the physical characteristics of a people are all that our space will permit us to cite. One is that of the Jews. "For 1800 years," says Owen,* " that race has been dispersed in different latitudes and climates, and they have preserved themselves distinct from intermixture with other races of mankind. There are some Jews still lingering in the valley of the Jordan, having been oppressed by the successive conquerors of Syria for ages-a low race of people, and described, by trustworthy travelers, as being black as any of the Ethiopian races. Others of the Jewish people, participating in European civilization, and dwelling in the northern nations, show instances. of the light complexion, the blue eyes, and the fair hair of the Scandinavian families. The condition of the Hebrews since their dispersion has not been such as to admit of much admixture by the proselytism of household slaves. We are thus led to account for the differences in color by the influence of climate, without having to refer them to original or specific distinctions."

Another case is that of the Portuguese, who settled in the East Indies in the beginning of the sixteenth century. They have now become as dark in their complexions as the native Hindus.

* Lecture before Camb. University, 1859, p. 96.

instincts of mankind, we find that they sink in character, and become physically degraded to a level with races whose features, at first sight, are very far removed. We need but to travel across the Irish Channel to see many groups of our Celtic fellow-subjects, who have been reduced by famine and disease to a degraded condition closely bordering on that of these savages." To the same effect remarks Professor Whitney, "Physical science is as yet far from having determined the kind, the rate, and the amount of modification which external conditions, as climate and mode of life, can introduce into a race-type; but that within certain undefined limits their influence is very powerful, is fully acknowledged. There is, to be sure, a party among zoologists and ethnologists who insist much upon the dogma of 'fixity of type,' and assert that all human races are original; but the general tendency of scientific opinion is in the other direction, toward the fuller admission of the variability of species. The first naturalists are still, and more than ever, willing to admit that all the differences now existing among human races may be the effects of variation from a single type, and that it is at least not necessary to resort to the hypothesis of different origins in order to explain them."

* Language, and the Study of Language, p. 376.

Two or three instances of change in the physical characteristics of a people are all that our space will permit us to cite. One is that of the Jews. "For 1800 years," says Owen, "that race has been dispersed in different latitudes and climates, and they have preserved themselves distinct from intermixture with other races of mankind. There are some Jews still lingering in the valley of the Jordan, having been oppressed by the successive conquerors of Syria for ages-a low race of people, and described, by trustworthy travelers, as being black as any of the Ethiopian races. Others of the Jewish people, participating in European civilization, and dwelling in the northern nations, show instances of the light complexion, the blue eyes, and the fair hair of the Scandinavian families. The condition of the Hebrews since their dispersion has not been such as to admit of much admixture by the proselytism of household slaves. We are thus led to account for the differences in color by the influence of climate, without having to refer them to original or specific distinctions."

Another case is that of the Portuguese, who settled in the East Indies in the beginning of the sixteenth century. They have now become as dark in their complexions as the native Hindus.

* Lecture before Camb. University, 1859, p. 96.

Latham thus speaks of changes which have taken place in the Mantchu population of Tartary : "Well clothed, warmly lodged, and with an environment of civilization, many of the Mantchus of China have changed their physiognomy no less than their habits. Sir John Barrow saw both men and women of Mantchu blood who were extremely fair, and of a florid complexion. Some had light blue eyes, straight or aquiline noses, brown hair, immense bushy. beards, and had more the appearance of Greeks than of Tatars. Whatever intermixtures may account for this description, it will not explain the beards. The Chinese have nothing of the kind; still less have the Mongols."

Mr. Reade, the writer quoted so largely in the Appendix, J, p. 396, after mentioning the various sub-classes of the African population, describes at length the changes which take place among them as they remove from their native districts toward the Atlantic coast, the proper locality of the typical negro.

"That the red races change to black when they descend into the lowlands can not, I think, be easily disputed. I was told by the Senegal residents, that some years ago it was very rarely that one saw a black Fula or Puelh. It is now almost impossible to find a Fula without travel

* Descriptive Ethnology, i. p. 264.