2. In the Mongolean variety, the colour is olive, the hair black, strong, and straight ; seldom curled, or in great abundance : head of a square form ; face broad and flattened ; nose small and fiat ; eyes placed very obliquely ; chin projecting slightly ; the ears large, and the lips thick. This variety comprehends all the Asi atic nations to the east of the Ob and the Caspian, ex cept the Malays ; and according to Blumenbach, it also includes the Laplanders, Esquimaux, Samoieds, &c.; but Dumeril forms a separate variety of these, and the other tribes, who dwell near the north pole, under the name of the Hyperborean variety.
3. The colour of the Malay variety is brown ; their hair black, soft, curled, and abundant; their head is rather narrow ; their nose full and broad towards the apex ; their mouth large. The peninsula of Malacca, the islands near it, and those of the South Sea, are in habited by this variety.
4. The Ethiopian variety have black skin and eyes; their hair is black and woolly ; head narrow and com pressed laterally ; eyes prominent ; their nose and lips, particularly the upper one, thick ; and their chin re ceding. This variety comprehends all the Africans, except those which are placed under the Caucasian va riety.
5. The American variety have a red complexion ; their hair resembles that of the Mongolian variety ; their eyes are deep set ; their nose rather flattened, and their face broad. All the inhabitants of the New World, except the Esquimaux, are comprehended in this va riety.
The nature and colour of the hair seems closely con nected with the complexion ; and, therefore, although in describing the varieties we have briefly noticed the dif ference in its colour, it may be proper to add a few par ticulars on this subject. In proportion to the thinness of the skin, and the fairness of the complexion, the hair is soft, fine, and of a white colour : this observation holds; good not only in the varieties which have been described, but also in the Albinos. Next to them in fairness of complexion is the Gothic race, the male come of whom were a distinguishing characteristic, even irr the time of the Romans. The Celtic tribes are not so fair as the Gothic, and their hair is darker and more inclined to curl ; so that the observation which Tacitus makes tespecting the Silures still applies to them, Colored vultus, turd crincs. But though the colour of the hair is evidently connected with the complexion, yet its tendency to curl does not appear to be so. The brown complexioned Cults have curled hair ; the Mongolian and American varieties, of a much darker complexion, have hair of a darker colour, but long and straight. Among that portion of the Malay variety, which inhabits the South Sea islands, soft and curled hair is frequently met with.
The hair of the New Caledonians is crisped ; that of the negroes woolly. The difference between these has been accurately marked by Forster. " The hair of the negroes," he says, " is not only frizzled, but each par ticular hair is found to be extremely thin, and proceed ing from a root remarkably smaller than that observed in other human hair." This thinness he attributes partly to climate, but principally to the copiousness of perspira tion not being checked by the use of oil. " The inhabi
tants of Otaheite," &c. he adds, " never have woolly hair, because they prevent too copious perspiration by the application of oil." This opinion, howeve?, does not seem to be well-founded, since Winterbottom asserts that the custom of anointing with oil is universal among the Africans. Forster's Observations made during a Voyage round the World, p. 239. Winterbottom, vol. i. p. 192.
The colour of the eye is also connected with the complexion. In the Africans, Professor Soemmering remarks, that the tunica adnata, or white of the eye, is not so resplendently white as in Europeans ; but rather of a yellowish brown, something similar to what occurs in the jaundice. The iris in the negroos, in general, is of a very dark colour ; but, according to Pegafeltu, the iris in the Congo negro is frequently of a bluish tinge ; and it is worthy of remark, that, according- to this author, these negroes have not the thick lips of the Nubians. The Gothic tribes are not more distinguished by their fair complexion than by their blue eyes (cerrulei oculi); the iris of the darker coloured Fin, according to Linnxus, is brown, and that of the still darker Lap lander, black. The colour of the eyes also follows, in a great degree, in its changes, the variations produced by age in the complexion. Blumenbach informs us, that newly born children in Germany have generally blue eyes and light hair, both of which become gradually of a darker hue, as the complexion of the individual grows darker ; and Ligon, in his " True and Exact History of Barbadoes," p. 52. says, that the children of the negroes there, when they are born, " have the sight of their eyes of a bluish colour, not unlike the eyes of a young kitten, but as they grow older they become black." The most singular race of men in point of complexion, are the Albinos. It is doubtful whether Pliny referred to them under the name Leuewthiopes, as he merely gives the name ; but from the manner of the term, it is probable he did. Tellezius, quoted by Ludolphus, in his Ethiopic History, (lib. i. cap. 14.), is among the first of modern writers who notices them : he says they were not uncommon in Abyssinia, where they were regarded with abhorrence, and their complexion was attributed to disease. Dampier and Wafer seem next to have noticed them in the isthmus of Darien. Knox, in his account of Ceylon, describes the Bedahs there as a kind of Albinos; but subsequent information respecting this island, though it proves this race to be very different from the other inhabitants, by no means confirms the account of Knox. Argensola, in l'Ilistoire de la Conquete des Isles Afolu p. 143. describes some of the inhabitants of these islands as Albinos, being as fair as Germans, with very weak eyes; and sonic of the older accounts of Chili and Florida, which mention the blue-eyed ccssarcs of the former country, and the acansas of the latter, if they can be depended upon, would seem to prove that Albinos once existed in these parts of America. But this sin gular race of men is most commonly met with in Africa; and the African Albino has been most minutely examin ed and described.