Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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This Fact Deserves To Be Cleared Up By Travellers
Who May Possess A Knowledge Of Physiology, And May Have
Opportunities
Of examining the brown children of the Mexicans at
the age of two years, as well as the white children
Of the Miamis,
and those hordes* on the Orinoco (* These whitish tribes are the
Guaycas, the Ojos, and the Maquiritares.), who, living in the most
sultry regions, retain during their whole life, and in the fulness
of their strength, the whitish skin of the Mestizoes.
In man, the deviations from the common type of the whole race are
apparent in the stature, the physiognomy, or the form of the body,
rather than on the colour of the skin.* (* The circumpolar nations
of the two continents are small and squat, though of races entirely
different.) It is not so with animals, where varieties are found
more in colour than in form. The hair of the mammiferous class of
animals, the feathers of birds, and even the scales of fishes,
change their hue, according to the lengthened influence of light
and darkness, and the intensity of heat and cold. In man, the
colouring matter seems to be deposited in the epidermis by the
roots or the bulbs of the hair:* (* Adverting to the interesting
researches of M. Gaultier, on the organisation of the human skin,
John Hunter observes, that in several animals the colorating of the
hair is independent of that of the skin.) and all sound
observations prove, that the skin varies in colour from the action
of external stimuli on individuals, and not hereditarily in the
whole race.
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