St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-11-03
THE NEGROES sLACKNEss.
Reasons Offered for the Color of
the Africans Skin.

Mr.. Mattieu Williams, i'll his Science
Notes. in the current number of the Gen
tleman's Magazine, says this question has
puzzled all the Psychologists who have
given it any amount Of thought Not only
are human beings black or dark in hot eli
mates. but other resembling animals vary
in like manner Pigs are usually las far
| have SEEM invariably black in hot eli
mates. Blumenbach included this varia-
ton among the resembances of pigs to our
selves. If we expose two surfaces similar
in all respects. but color to the glare of
the sun. the black becomes the hotter and
other coIors graduate according TO their de-
grees of darkness on to white. which is the
least heated. Franklin's celebrated expert
ment of placing pieces of differently col
ored cloth on the snow while the sun was
shining, and observing the depths to which
they respectively sunk in the snow, illus
trates this very strikngly.
According to this black skin should be
specially unfit for enduring the fierce radia-
ton of the tropical sun. Many specula-
lions some rather far FETCHED and pedantlc,
have been offered to account for this APP
parent paradox; but the only satisfactory
one have met with was suggested lately
by CORRESPONDENT to Nature. He states
good reasons for believing that ..the pen
etration of light through the skin to the in
ternal organs of the body is injurious, and
he further suggests that such penetration
NAV occur to considerable extent unless
special provision is made against 1t. One
of my SchOolboy experiments was TO shut
myself up in wind0wless store-room, the
side of which was freely exposed to the
sun, and then place my hand over the key
hole or crevice of the door Sufficient
light passed through to illuminate my hand.
especially the fingers, and show therein the
position of the bones. L have not repeated
it since my hand has become full grown, and
therefore cannot say whether 1t Is still as
translucent as then. 1t has lately been pro-
posed to examine the stomach by causing
the patient to swallow all electric lamp,
which will illuminate it sufficiently to show
something of its condition through the in
teguments. l say proposed, but suspect
that the lamp is too hot. The carbon layer
I in the rete mucOSum of the negro, being
OPAQUE like other forms of carbon, must
form all effectual veil and thus protect that
most important organ below, the cults vera,
or true skin, bodily envelope of vascular
tissue. presenting vast surface of circuat-
ing blood. which is certainly subject TO
brilliant illumination when only protected
from sunlight by the thin translucent cuti-
cule.
We know that sunlight has considerable
chemical energy, and also that sunstrOke,
to which light-compexioned people are es-
pecially liable, is more dependent on light
than on mere temperature and, such being
the case. the value of an effective vail or
screen extending over the whole OF the
body may be very great even though ac-
companed with considerable absorption of
heat and roasting of the cuticule, which is
itself insensible. The shading effect of the
bIackness is, in fact, due to the conversion
of light into heat.