VARIETIES OF THE HUNAN RACE.
The colour of the skin forms a very con stant hereditary character, most clearly influenced by that of both parents in the hybrid offspring of different varieties, having a close and nearly uniform relation to that of the hair and iris, and indeed to the whole temperament of the individual ; and for all these reasons attracting most immediately the attention of the cursory observer.
The seat of this colour is in a thin mu cous stratum, interposed between the cuticle, or dead surface of the body, and the true skin, and called rete mucosum, or rete Malpighii. The native reddish white of the real skin appears through this, which is very thin and almost colour less, in the white races of mankind. But in the darker varieties the rete mucosum is much thicker, and contains throughout its substance a black pigment; while the cuticle and cutis deviate but little from the colour which they have in fair per sons.
The different varieties of mankind ex hibit every possible shade, between the snowy whiteness of the European female and the jet black of the Negro. Although none of these gradations obtain so univer sally, as to be found in all the individuals of any particular nation, nor are so"pecu liar to one race, as not to occur occa sionally in other widely different ones, the national varieties of colour may be referred on the whole, with sufficient ac curacy, to the five following principal classes.
1. White, to which redness of the cheeks is almost wholly confined, being observed at least very rarely, if at all, in the other varieties. This obtains in most of the European nations, in the western Asiatics, as the Turks, Georgians, Circas sians, Mingrelians, Armenians, Persians, &c. and in the inhabitants of the northern parts of Africa.
3. Yellow, or olive (a middle tint be tween that of wheat and boiled quince, or dried lemon peel), which characterises the Mongolian tribes, usually called, to gether with the inhabitants of great part of Asia, Tartars.
3. Red, or copper colour (bronze, Fr. an obscure orange, or rusty iron colour, not unlike the bark of the cinnamon tree) almost confined to the Americans.
4. Tawny, or brown (Moane, Fr. a mid dle tint between that of fresh mahogany and cloves or thesnuts) which belongs to the Malays, and the inhabitants of the South Sea islands.
5. Black, in various shades from the sooty colour, or tawny-black, to that of pitch, or jet-black. This is well known to prevail very extensively on the conti nent of Africa : it is found also in other very different and distant varieties of the human race, mingled with the national colour, as in the natives of Brazil, Cali fornia, India, and some South Sea islands, as New Holland and New Guinea. In describing these five varieties, we fix on the most strongly marked tints, between which there is every conceivable inter mediate shade of colour. The opposite extremes run into each other by the nicest and most delicate gradations, in every other particular in which the hu man species differs. This forms no slight objection to the hypothesis of different species. For, on that supposition, we cannot define the number of species, nor can we point out the boundaries which, divide them ; whereas in animals, which most resemble each other, the different species are preserved pure and unmixed Neither does the colour, which we de scribe in general terms as belonging to any particular race, prevail so universally in all the individuals of that race as to constitute an invariable character, as we should expect, if it arose from such an uniform cause as an original specific dif ference: its varieties, on the contrary, point out the action of accidental circum stances. Thus, although the red colour is very general on the American conti nent, travellers have observed fair tribes in several parts ; as Bouguer in Peru, Cook at Nootka Sound, and Weld near the United States. The natives of New Zealand vary from a deepish black to an olive, or yellowish tinge ; in the Friendly Islands they are of a complexion deeper than the copper brown ; but several of both sexes are of the olive colour, and some of the women are much fairer.