MIXED RACES. Races which are blends of various other raves, the factors which have been most potent in producing the varieties of mini which we find on earth to-day, probably en vironment and cross-breeding must be nssigned the first place. i'nfortunately,neit her one has been investigated with sufficient care to allow an accu rate estimate of its specific influence. Further, the lack of any agreement among anthropologists as to a classification of human races complieates the problem, and until that agreement is reached, eonfusion in the discussion is inevitable.
Certain general observations may, however, be permitted. 'With regard to cross-breeding, it is 1111110111)(111 that extensive migrations, with conse quent blood mixtures. have been going on for an indefinite period. Accurate observation of tomical :nil physiological characteristics of eery fain rather restricted groups, as in Enrope, re veals a voriahility in these characters which has led sumo observers to conelmide that a pure race does not exist at the present time. llecognizing these disturbing facts, however, any one will ad mit that there are certain types which are rein tively permanent. lVe regard the fair white European as differing permanently from the Ne gro. and both of those equally permall?glily from the typical Mongol. it is also a matter of com mon observation that mixture of any two of those types will produce a third, less distinctive, of course. but not to be included in either parent type. The real problem of hybridity :is applied to man then arises; Are these subtypes perma nent and fertile, or do they tend to revert to either one or the other of the parent types? It is here that the lack of accurate knowledge re ferred to above prevents positive statement. Early reports as to lack of fertility of certain half breeds, as in the case of English and Australians, have been shown upon examination to he errone ous or the apparent sterility due to non-essential factors; and recent observations on half-breed American Indians actually show an increase rather than a decrease in fertility. Looking at
the question broadly, it would seem that the evi dence, while extremely scanty, points toward the view that any two races (however defined) can unite to form a third; and this in turn with others. until we have a confusion of strains and types in which the originals are indistinguishable, wholly or partly, which is apparently precisely the condition which we find to-day in varbRIA re gions of the world. An authoritative catalogue of the existing mixed races of the world is there fore impossible. The most notable are probably the well-known Mulatto, or cross between Euro pean and Negro, the 'Mestizo, so called, or cross between European and American Indian, and the complex mixtures which we find in the East In dian Archipelago, where Chinese and Malayan traits predominate.
The social significance of race mixture is of course very great, but the complicating factors in this aspect of the question are even greater than on the physical side. We find lucre two schools ardently advocating diametrically op posed views both as to the advantages or disad vantages of racial mixtures, as well as to the mode of transmission of the characteristics of the parent stocks. The whole problem is involved in the general zoological problem of evolution and heredity, and unassailable ground as to the points involved cannot be assumed until a much wider range of -facts is at our disposal and the disputed questions of inheritance in general have more nearly approached solution.