This is nowhere so evident as on the American continent, where since the Spanish conquest such districts as Mexico are largely peopled by the mestizo descendants of Spaniards and native Americans, while the importation of African slaves in the West Indies has given rise to a mulatto population. By taking into account such intercrossing of races, anthropologists have a reason to give for the endless shades of diversity among mankind, without attempting the hopeless task of classifying every little uncertain group of men into a special race. The watercarrier from Cairo, in Fig. 22, may serve as an example of the difficulty of making a systematic arrangement to set each man down to his precise race. This man speaks Arabic, and is a Moslem, but he is not an Arab proper, reither is he an Egyptian of the old kingdom, but the child of a land where the Nubian, Copt, Syrian, Bedouin, and many other peoples have mingled for ages, and in fact his ancestry may come out of three quarters of the globe. Among the natives of India, a variety of complexion and feature is found which cannot be classified exactly by race. But it must be remembered that several very distinct varieties of men have contributed to the population of the country, namely the dark-brown indigenes or hill-tribes, the yellow Mongolians who have crossed the frontiers from Tibet, and the fairer ancient Aryans or Indo-Europeans who poured in from the north-west; not to mention others, the mixture of these nations going on for ages has of course produced numberless crosses. So in Europe, taking the fair nations of the Baltic and the dark nations of the Mediterranean as two distinct races or varieties, their intercrossing may explain the infinite diversity of brown hair and intermediate complexion to be met with. If then it be considered that man was already divided into a few

may

great main races in remote antiquity, their intermarriage through ages since will go far to account for the innumerable slighter varieties which shade into one another.

It is not enough to look at a race of men as a mere body

of people happening to have a common type or likeness. For the reason of their likeness is plain, and indeed our calling them a race means that we consider them a breed whose common nature is inherited from common ancestors. Now experience of the animal world shows that a race or breed,

pairing individuals within a few years.

while capable of carrying on its likeness from generation to generation, is also capable of varying. In fact, the skilful cattle-breeder, by carefully choosing and which vary in a particular direction, can form a special breed of cattle or sheep. Without such direct interference of man, special races or breeds of animals form themselves under new conditions of climate and food, as in the familiar instances of the Shetland ponies, or the mustangs of the Mexican plains which have bred from the horses brought over by the Spaniards. It naturally suggests itself that the races of man may be thus accounted for as breeds, varied from one original stock. It may be strongly argued in this direction that not only do the bodily and mental varieties of mankind blend gradually into one another, but that even the most dissimilar races can intermarry in all directions, producing mixed or sub-races which, when left to themselves, continue their own kind. Advocates of the polygenist theory, that there are several distinct races of man, sprung from independent origins, have denied that certain races, such as the English and native Australians, produce fertile half-breeds. But the evidence tends more and more to establish crossing as possible between all races, which goes to prove that all the varieties of mankind are zoologically of one species. While this principle seems to rest on firm ground, it must be admitted that our knowledge of the manner and causes of race-variation among mankind is still very imperfect. The great races, black, brown, yellow, white, had already settled into their well-known characters before written record began, so that their formation is hidden far back in the præ-historic period. Nor are alterations of such amount known to have taken place in any people within the range of history. It has been plausibly argued that our rude primitive ancestors, being

less able than their posterity to make themselves independent of climate Ly shelter and fire and stores of food, were more exposed to alter in body under the influence of the new climates they migrated into. Even in modern times, it seems possible to trace something of race-change going on under new conditions of life. Thus Dr. Beddoe's measurements prove that in England the manufacturing town-life has given rise to a population an inch or two less in stature than their forefathers when they came in from their country villages. So in the Rocky Mountains there are clans of Snake Indians whose stunted forms and low features, due to generations of needy outcast life, mark them off from their better nourished kinsfolk in the plains. It is asserted that the pure negro in the United States has undergone a change in a few generations which has left him a shade lighter in complexion and altered his features, while the pure white in the same region has become less rosy, with darker and more glossy hair, more prominent cheek-bones and massive lower jaw. These are perhaps the best authenticated cases of race-change. There is great difficulty in watching a race undergoing variation, which is everywhere masked by the greater changes caused by new nations coming in to mingle and intermarry with the old. He who should argue from the Greek sculptures that the national type has changed since the age of Perikles, would be met with the answer that the remains of the old stock have long been inextricably blended with others. The points which have now been brought forward will suffice to show the uncertainty and difficulty of any attempt to trace exactly the origin and course of the races of man. Yet at the same time there is a ground-work to go upon in the fact that these races are not found spread indiscriminately over the earth's surface, but certain

races plainly belong to certain regions, seeming each to have taken shape under the influences of climate and soil in its proper district, where it flourished, and whence it spread far and wide, modifying itself and mingling with other races as it went. The following brief sketch may give an idea how the spreading and mixture of the great races may have taken place. It embodies well-considered views of eminent anatomists, especially Professors Huxley and Flower. Though such a scheme cannot be presented as proved and certain, it is desirable to clear and fix our ideas by understanding that man's distribution over the earth did not take place by promiscuous scattering of tribes, but along great lines of movement whose regularity can be often discerned, where it cannot be precisely followed out.

That there is a real connexion between the colour of races and the climate they belong to, seems most likely from the so-called black peoples. Ancient writers were satisfied to account for the colour of the Æthiopians by saying that the sun had burnt them black, and though modern anthropologists would not settle the question in this off-hand way, yet the map of the world shows that this darkest race-type is principally found in a tropical climate. The main line of black races stretches along the hot and fertile regions of the equator, from Guinea in West Africa to that great island of the Eastern Archipelago, which has its name of New Guinea from its negro-like natives. In a former geological period an equatorial continent (to which Sclater has given. the name of Lemuria) may even have stretched across from Africa to the far East, uniting these now separate lands. The attention of anthropologists has been particularly attracted by a line of islands in the Sea of Bengal, the Andamans, which might have been part of this former continent, and were found inhabited by a scanty population