The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-09-14
Human Skin; How It Received Its
 Racial CoIors

Mdn $ OTlS1naI COtOr dIlQ Illo CdOSo of the chang ges in that color to the va rious hues that mark the skins of the different races have long been study among men of science
 The theory of Professor Lionel Lyde, an English scientist, is that, whatever the color of primitive man in the beginning, the conditions Of life during the glacial period were such that uniformity of results must have been produced. Nearly every anthropolgfst is ready to admit now a common origin for all mankind. Where man originated is not known very likely in southern Asia, possibly in Africa, certainly not in Europe, they say. His original color is SUD- ish yellow not like any of the colors of mankind to-day, and scientists call him, for tlle sake of calling him some thing, a Condwana.
 He lived in southern latitudes. This they think. is certain. Then came n1igrarions, and then, Professor Lyde believes, the varations of color began Some turned white, some turned black, some brown and some yellow, all according to the climate in which they found themselves.
 Climate influences worked directly and indirectly In the tropics the skin and dQhe intestines perform work which in temperate zones is thrown on the lungs. So when man found him. self in colder lands the increased ac- ,tivity of the lungs, together with the 1essened light and heat, favored light enirg of the skin. When he found himself in hotter climates the fncreas- ea activity of the liver and the pres ence of great light favored a dark skin.
 The old theories of race are pretty 5<~J <Nf k1,ac 60 O race, under differing conditions, would come to be outwardly very different Thus even in Africa, which everybody thinks of as the baald of blacks, black is not at all the universal color. In the Sudan, where there are great light and littae humidity and no shade, the men are very black. Elsewhere in Af- rbca, where there are forest, more hu- mfdity, and less light, though about equal d1eat, the color is brown and ev- en yellow.
 As primitive man went on his way over the globe he adapted himself to the conditions he found. Professor Lyde thinks that it is light and not heat w41ich is injurious. There are in the tropics dangerous X-hke rays which must be stopped, and they were stopped by the darkenhng of the skin. Since lack of moisture also tends to give @ tawney color, it is found that in rainy countries the people are fairer than in places where there are long and frequent drOnghts.
 The race, then that found home in moderate and damp climates turn ed whittier and winter. It is only i'm such climates that white skins can en- dure, and presumably, if the present white race was turned into differ ertt part of the world for many halrl- dreds o. years, the whdteness of skin would gradually be lost. Perhaps. since the white man is spreading over the world to-day, it would be fair ito Say it will. in such cases. be lost. the whiteness being retained only in cli- mates that have the conditions under which the race was first bleached.
 Intensity of light and little humid ity made black. Trade winds and lft- tie humidity gave the tinge of brown to the subtropical Mediterranean peo pie Then comes yellow, which Pro- lessor 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 humid ity and seasonal extremes of tempera- tlme. The color a man exposed to such conditions would naturally take would be one which coG1serves heat nearly as we'll as white, but which also protects from light, for which combin ation yellow was the best, or red. The normal color of these folk of the grass lands would be changed by special To- caa conditions, such as the presence of mountains or proximity to the sea. The nnolmtaineers of Asia and the maritime Mongolians are lighter in. color than their brothers of the inland plains
 To Professor Lyde, therefore, skin color ds entirely a matter of climate. It is we'll established phenomenon now because the different portions of tl1e human race lived segregated for thousands of years in special areas, but the same forces that made men white and black and yellow are oper- ating to-day, slowly, but surely. Men who change their dwelling places will still, after huNdreds of generations. change also their skins as they did tin the epoch of the first migrations.