It is observed that there are two great varie ties of people in the Pacific islands; the one more fair, the other blacker, with their hair just beginning to be woolly and crisp. The first race inhabits Tahiti and other of the Society Is lands, the Marquesas, the Friendly Isles, Eas ter Island and New Zealand; the second race peoples New Caledonia, Tanna and the New Hebrides, especially Mallicolo. If we examine the relative situation and latitudes of these is lands on a map, we shall be convinced not only that darker complexioned people are found where the climate is comparatively colder, but that the same complexion is found under very different latitudes. It is not meant to be denied that a burning climate will render the complex ion very dark, and that a climate of less extreme heat will bronze the complexion of the fairest European; but there are some material points in which the dark complexion of the Caucasian, or naturally fair-skinned variety of manlcind, caused by climate, differs from the dark com plexion of all the other varieties of the human race.
1. The offspring of the Caucasian variety is born fair; the offspring of the other varieties is born of the respective complexion of their par ents. Ulloa informs us that the children born in Guayaquil of Spanish parents are very fair. The same is the case in the West Indies. Long, in his history of Jamaica, expressly affirms °that the children born in England have not, in general, lovelier or more transparent skins than the offspring of white parents in Jamaica? But it may be urged that this is not the case with respect to the other nations of the Caucasian variety, who have been settled in warm climates from time immemorial, and that the question ought to be decided by the Moors, Arabians, etc. Their children, however, are also born fair complexioned, as fair as the children of Euro peans who live under a cold climate. Russell informs us that the inhabitants of the country round Aleppo are naturally a fair complex ion, and that women of condition, with proper care, preserve their fair complexion to the last. The children of the Moors, according to Shaw, have the finest complexions of any nation what soever; and the testimony of Poiret is directly to the same effect. °The Moors are not naturally black, but are born fair, and when not exposed to the heat of the sun remain fair during their lives? 2. Individuals belonging to the Caucasian variety, that inhabit warm countries, preserve their native fairness of complexion if they are not exposed to the influence of the climate; while there is a uniform black color over all the parts of a negro's body. The hue which Europeans assume is the same, though the tinge may be lighter or darker, whether they settle in Africa, the East Indies or South America.
They do not become, like the natives of those countries, black, olive-colored or copper-col ored; their complexion merely resembles that of a tanned person in this country, only of a darker tinge. The negroes that are settled in the West Indies or America do not assume the copper color of the Indians, even though a milder climate may have some effect on the darkness of their complexions. The children of Europeans, of negroes and of Indians are all born, in America, of the same reddish hue; but in a few days those of the negro begin to assume the black complexion of their parents, those of the Indian the copper complexion, while those of the European either continue fair, if kept from the influence of the sun, or become tanned; not black like the negro, or copper-colored like the Indian, if exposed to its influence. Europeans who settle in Canada, or in the northern parts of America, where the climate resembles that of their native country, do not assume the complexion of the Indians, but continue fair like their ancestors. The same observation may be made respecting the Rus sians who are settled among the Mongolian variety, in those parts of the Russian Empire in Asia, the climate of which resembles the middle or northern parts of European Russia. Indeed the wide extent of countryover which the Mongolian variety is spread, including the ex treme cold of Lapland and the north of Asia, the mild temperature of the middle parts of that continent, and the warmth of the southern parts of China, is in itself a proof that dark complexion does not arise either from the in fluence of heat or cold.
Lastly, radical varieties of complexion are always accompanied with radical varieties of features. We do not find the olive color of the Mongolian variety with the features of the Malay; nor the brown color of the Malay with the features of the Mongolian; nor the black skin of the Ethiopian variety, or the red color of the American, united with any Set of features but those which characterize their respective va rieties. It, however, by no means follows that the hypotheses of different races having been originally formed must be adopted, because cli mate is not adequate to the production of the radical varieties of complexion which are found among mankind. Man, as well as animals, has a propensity to form natural varieties; and the variations may in process of time involve all the tissues so as to yield permanent differences in color and quality of hair, color of skin, size and form of bones especially those of the skull and limbs. See EPIDERMIS; HISTOLOGY;