Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1869-04-01
guttrtsting & gnstrufttrt fatts
Colsr In Human Races.

It has often been remarked by natur-
alists that, while color is one OF the least
stable and distinctive characteristics in
other animals or in plants, it is remark
ably permanent among the races of men,
so that no anatomical popularity is more
SO. Horses, cattle, dogs, cats. rabbits,
fowls, in fact all ANIMALS except man,
living under artificial conditions, vary
greatly in color, and are sure 10 vary,
unless extreme pains be taken to keep a
pure breed. The approach to this varia-
bility in any one race Of man Is super
1cially slight; but yet important, as is
seen in the difference between blonde
and brunette, between black eyes and
blue, and especially between the shades
Of hair. Were the human body covered
entirely with hair, ~ is the case with
the lower animals, we should not hear
SO much said about color. We should
have fiax-colored or white, yellow, red,
and black Caucasians. The hair in man
does vary as much as the covering of
birds or animals. IF we go deeper to the
skin, We shall find variation of color
dependent on physical conditions. If
there be little or no exposure to the light
| there is no color to the skin. Thus, in
animals with thick wool, or fur, or feath-
ers, the skin is often entirely white, no
matter what the color of the hair or
| feathers. Such every one knows is the
case with fowls, except their ISs., lie
only exposed part, and in which the
coler varies. If the hair be very thin,
the coloring n.atteF, which is attracted
outward as far as possible, may be some
Of it left, as in horses or swine, in the
skin itself; while in the elephant, which
has no hair, the skin always exposed is
I <Iw l. L., l. r
course, of cases of albinism. The cause
Of color in the human skin is readily
enough traceable to exposure to light
1t is true that in modern times there
have no cases been known where race
has become entirely black or entirely
white (allowing that the black Jews may
be only proselytes). but in any except
savage state extreme pains is unwitting-
" taken to keep the skin of light color.
More than nine-tenths of the body is
always kept in the dark. 1t is covered
with Opaque clothing. Even the face
and hands are large part of the time
under cover, protected from the SUMS
rays. The body, under these circum-
stances, cannot get black. 1t has be-
come quite black only in those climates
where the children always go entirely
naked and their parents with nothing
more than cloth around their loins.-I
Were CaucassiaEs to sc TO Africa, and
to discard their clothes, it might not
take more generations to modify the
colsr of their skin than it does to change
the color of their eyes or hair; and this
change has often taken place in historic
cal times and in temperate latitudes. No
fact in anthrOpolegy is more certain than
that the Norwegians, ant Germans, and
Italians are from the same original stock;
yet how great the difference in complex
ion, eyes, and hairI II is rs certain as
accessible evidence can make it that the
upper castles of India belong to this same
race, and they are much darker colored
than even the Italians or Spaniards.-I
Take even the seant two centuries which
separate the stock Of New England from
that Of the Southern States, and we see
marked difference in complexion.-
There Is no reason to believe that the
difference in the color or the human
races Is dependent on anything else than
a difference in the exposure Of the body
for some generations to sunlight. The
familiar phenomenon OF freckles, . ten
dency to which is inherited, and which
appear only on parts 1posed to the light,
suggests to us how few generations IL
might take to turn the entire body OF
Caucasin to Mongolian color. It should
be added that we. know dark eolors to
bleach as truly as the white to darken
The ancestors Of the Scandinavians
came from the uplands Of Asia. and Ger
ealnly had dark compilations and dark
halr. And in eur own country the full
blooded negroes of the third or fourth
generation are considerably less sooty
than their ancestors.