MIXED RACES. The subject of mixed races is one intimately connected with on enlarged study of ethnology. It involves a consideration of the phenomena attendant upon the sexual union between individuals belonging to different varieties of the human race; as, for instance—adopting the classification of Blumenbach—between the Euro pean and the negro or the American Indian ; or between the American Indian and the negro; or between any of these three and individuals belonging to the Malay and Mon golian varieties. It is well understood that such unions are in general prolific; and not only so, but that their offspring is likewise prolific; and this fact is much relied upon by some ethnologists as an argument in favor of the unity of the human race. They reason thus: Were the different varieties of mankind distinct species, as has been frequently alleged, then it would necessarily follow that the offspring of such unions would prove as unfruitful as those between the horse and the ass, the goat and the sheep, the wolf and the dog; and similarly with respect to the hybrids among birds, insects, and plants. To sum up, in the words of Dr. Prichard, the best exponent of this school of ethnology: "It seems to be the well-established result of-inquiries into the various tribes of organized beings, that the perpetuation of hybrids, whether of plants or animals, so as to produce new and intermediate tribes, is impossible. Now, unless all these observations are erro neous, or capable of some explanation that has not yet been pointed out, they lead, with the strongest force of analogical reasoning, to the conclusion that a number of different tribes, such as the various races of men, must either b incapable of intermixing their stock, and thus always fated to remain separate from each other, or, if the contrary should be the fact, that all the races to whom the remark applies, are proved by it to belong to the same species." Dr. Prichard further observes, that so far from such unions between members of different varieties of the human race proving unfruitful, or their offspring unfruitful, the very opposite is the case, as, for instance, in unions between the negro and the European, the most strongly marked Varieties of our race. "If we inquire," be says, "into the facts which relate to the intermixture of negroes and Europeans, it will be impossible to doubt the tendency of the so-termed mulattoes to increase. The men of color, or the mixed race between the Creoles and the negroes, are in many of the West India islands a rapidly increasing people, and it would be very probable that they will eventually become the permanent masters of those islands, were it not for the great numerical superiority of the genuine negroes. In many parts of America they are also very numerous " It is to America, indeed, both North and South, that we must chiefly look for the munerons and varied phenomena resulting from this intermixture of races; for there we have not only the negro and the European mingling their blood, hut the negro and the American Indian, the European and the Indian, and the offspring of each of with the offspring of the other, or with members of either of the parent stocks; added to which, of late years, the Chinese (of Mongolian race er variety) have appeared upon the scene, thus contributing greatly to the number of what arc termed human hybrids. All these, however, are not equally fertile; and with respect even to the mulat
toes, it is alleged by writers of the Morton school of ethnology that they do not perpetu ate themselves for many generations. "Nature," says Squier, rather dogmatically, "perpetuates no human hybrids—as, for instance, a permanent race of mulattoes." And Dr. Nott, adopting the classification of species laid down by Dr. Morton—namely, remote species, in which hybrids are never produced; allied species, which produce, inter se, an unfertile offspring; and proximate species, which produce with each other a fertile off spring—is of opinion that it is only by the union of southern or dark-skinned Europeans with negroes that thoroughly prolific mulattoes are engendered, which is not the case in unions occurring between individuals of the Anglo-Saxon and negro races. In arriving at this conclusion, we cannot help thinking that the author has been helped forward by the strong prejudice existing in the southern states against all taint of negro blood. A more impartial writer, prof. Wilson, in his Prehistoric Man, observes: •` There are upwards of 4,000,000 of people of African blood in the United States, and certainly not less than 10,000,000 throughout the continent and islands of North and South America, and of these the larger proportion consists of hybrids. . . . It is impossible to deter with certainty how far the hybrid colored population of the United States is capable of permanency, either by the development of a fixed hybrid type, or by continuous fer tility, until the predominant primary type reasserts its power, by their return to that of the original white or black parent, so long as the mixed breed is constantly augmented in the southern states by variance with the natural and moral relations of social life." As it is, the weight of evidence appears to be in favor of Dr. I'richard's views; but until the doctrine of hybridity is better understood, mid a more satisfactory answer to the vexed question, "What is species?" has been supplied to us, we must deem it idle to pronounce dogmatically on the subject. See HYBRID and SPECTES. We conclude with a list of half-castes given by Dr. Tschudi, "with a few additions from other sources," printed in the appendix to prof. Wilson's valuable work just mentioned.