Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-09-11
How MEN CHANGED COLOR.
Climate Held Responsible for Kind of
Skin Races Have.

Prof Lionel Lyde, who teaches econo-
mic geography in University college, Lon
don, has attracted deal of attention
recently with his remarks on the sub
ject OF skin color. 1t is interesting to
note just what he really has said on this
mueh-discussed subject.
Prof. Lyde's theory is that whatever
the color of primitive man in the begin
ming. the conditions of life during the
glacial period We're such that uniformity
of results must have been produced.
| Nearly every anthropologst is ready to
/, admit now common origin for all man.
kind Where man originated is not
known-very likely in southern Asia, pos
sibly in Africa. certainly not in Europe,
they say. Ills original color is supposed
TO have been sort of brownish-yelow,
not like any Of the eoIors of mankind to-
day, and scientists call him. for the sake
Of calling him something, condwana.
lie lived in southern latitudes-this
they think. Is certain. Then came mi
eratfons. and then. Prof Lyde believes
the variations of color began. Some
turned white, some turned black, some
brown and some yellow all according to
the climate in which they found them
selves.
Climatic influences worked directly and
indirectly. In the tropics the skin and
the intestines perform work, which in
temperate zones is thrown on the lungs.
So when man found himself in cooler
lands the increased activity of the lungs,
together with the lessened light and heat,
favored Tightening of the skin. When he
found himself in hotter climates the in
creased activity of the liver and the
presence of great light favored a dark
skin.
The old theories of race are pretty we'll
discarded, for men of the same race, un-
der differing conditions. would come to be
outwardly very different. Thus. even in
Africa. which everybody thinks of as the
land of blacks, black is not at all the
universal color. In the Sudan. where
there is great light and little humidity
and no shade. the men are very black
Elsewhere in Africa, where there is for
est, more humidity and less light. though
about equal heat, the color is brown, and
even yellow
AS primitive man went on his way over
the globe he adapted himself to the condi-
tons he found Prof Lyde thinks that it
10 HSilt. anu not meat NhitH - i''JHA'S~
There are in the tropics dangerous X-like
rays which must be stopped, and they
were stopped by the darkenins of the
skin. Since lack of moisture also tends
to give tawny color it is founu that in
rainy countries the people are fairer
than in places where there are long and
frequent drouths.
The race. then. that found home in
I'll,
whittier and whittier. II is only in such eli
mates that white skins can endure, and
presumably. if the present white race
was turned into a different part of the
world for many hundreds of years, the
whiteness of skin would gradually be
lost-perhaps since the white man is
spreading over the world today. it would
be fair to say it will. in such cases. be
lost the wilderness being retained only in
climates that have the conditions under
which the race was first bleaehed.
Intensity of light and little humidity |
made black. Trade winds and little hui |
mdity gave the tinge of brown to the
subtropical Mediterranean people Then |
comes yellow. which Prof. Lyde puts |
down as the result of vast dessicating |
grass lands" in incorporate attitudes
The yellow man is the product of the !
grass lands with lack of humidity and |
seasonal extremes of temperature. The |
color a man exposed to such conditions
would naturally take would be one which |
heat nearly as well as white, !
but which also protects from light-for |
which combination yellow was the best, |
on red. The normal color of these folk of |
the grass lands would be changed by spe- |
cial local conditions. such as the pres |
ence of mountains or the proximity to |
the sea. The mountaipesfs Of Asia and /