Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1886-10-13
ThoBlsekskin.

i
Mr.. Mattieu Williams in his Science
Notes. in the current number Of the
Gentleman's Magazine says this ques-
ton has puzzled all the Psychologists
Who have given it any amount Of
thought. Not only are human beings
black or dark In hot climates, but
other resembling animals vary in ike
manner. Pigs are usually Gas far as I
have seen) Invariably black in hot
climates. Blumenbach included this
variation among the reeemblances of
pigs to ourselves. II we expose two
surfaces similar in all respects but
color to the glare Of the sun, the black
becomes the hotter and other colors
graduate according to their degrees Of
darkness on to white, which is the
least heated. Franklin's celebrated
experiment Of placing pieces of diff
ferently colored cloth or the snow
while the sun was shining and observ-
ing the depths to which they respect
lively sunk in the snow illustrates this
very strikingly.
According to this a black skin should
be specially unfit for enduring the fierce
radiation of the tropical sun. Many
speculations, some rather f~ar-fetched
and pedantic, have been offered to ac-
count for this apparent paradox; but
| the only satisfactory one l have met
With was suggested lately by q cores.
pondent to Nature. he states good
reasons for believing that the penetra-
ton Of Ii ht through the skin to the in
ternal organs of the body is injurious,
and he further suggests that such pene-
tration may occur to q considerable
extent unless special provision is made
against it.: One of my school-boy ex-
periments was to shut myself up in q
Windowless storeroom, the side of which
was freely exposed to the sun, and then
place my hand owe the keYhole or
crevice of the door. Sufficient light
passed through to illuminate my hand,
especially the fingers, and show there
in the position of the bones. | have
not repeated it since my hand has be-
come full grown and therefore cannot
say whether it is still as translucent as
then. 1t has lately been proposed to
SAdA1lA0 OA0 oUOAAuOA ~ NONoA6 WIN
patient to swallow a electric lamp,
which will illuminate it -sufi-
GENTLY to. show something Of
it's condition through the integuments.
l say proposed, but suspect that the
lamp is too hot: The carbon layer in
the rete of the negro, being
opaque like other forms of carbon,
must form an effectual veil and thus
protect that most important organ be-
low, the cults vera, or true skin, a
bodily envelope of vascular tissue, pre-
senting a vast surface of circulating
blood, which is certainly subject tc
brilliant illumination when only pro
tected from sunlight by the thin tran
slucent ~cuticle.
We know that sunlight mas consider
able chemical energy and also thai
sunstroke. to which light. complexioned
people are especially liable, is more de
pendent on light than on mere tenn
perature; and, such being the case. thu
value of an effective veil or screen ex
tending over the whole body may b
very great, even though accompanied
with considerable absorption of hea
and roasting of the c~uticle, which is it
self insensible. The shading effect o
the blackness is, in fact, due to tn
conversion of light into heat. 49,.