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 the same local diseases as other unacclimatized individuals. He well remarked that the debility and sickening of Europeans in many tropical countries are wrongly ascribed to the climate, but are rather the consequences of indolence, sensual gratification and an irregular mode of life. Thus the English, who cannot give up animal food and spirituous liquors, are less able to sustain the heat of the tropics than the more sober Spaniards and Portuguese. The excessive mortality of European troops in India, and the delicacy of the children of European parents, do not affect the real question of acclimatization under proper conditions. They only show that acclimatization is in most cases necessary, not that it cannot take place. The best examples of partial or complete acclimatization are to be found where European races have permanently settled in the tropics, and have maintained themselves for several generations. There are, however, two sources of inaccuracy to be guarded against, and these are made the most of by the writers above referred to, and are supposed altogether to invalidate results which are otherwise opposed to their views. In the first place, we have the possibility of a mixture of native blood having occurred; in the second, there have almost always been a succession of immigrants from the parent country, who continually intermingle with the families of the early settlers. It is maintained that one or other of these mixtures is absolutely necessary to enable Europeans to continue long to flourish in the tropics.

There are, however, certain cases in which the sources of error above mentioned are reduced to a minimum, and cannot seriously affect the results; such as those of the Jews, the Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope and in the Moluccas, and the Spaniards in South America.

The Jews are a good example of acclimatization, because they have been established for many centuries in climates very different from that of their native land; they keep themselves almost wholly free from intermixture with the people around them; and they are often so populous in a country that the intermixture with Jewish immigrants from other lands cannot seriously affect the local purity of the race. They have, for instance, attained a population of millions in such severe climates as Poland and Russia; in the towns of Algeria they have succeeded so conspicuously as to bring about an outburst of anti-semitism; and in Cochin-China and Aden they succeed in rearing children and forming permanent communities.

In some of the hottest parts of South America Europeans are perfectly acclimatized, and where the race is kept pure it seems to be even improved. Some very valuable notes on this subject were furnished to the present writer by the well-known botanist, Richard Spruce, who resided many years in South America, but who was prevented by ill-health from publishing his researches (see A. R. Wallace, Notes of a Botanist, 1908). As a careful, judicious and accurate observer, both of man and nature, he had few superiors. He says:

These instances, so well stated by Spruce, seem to demonstrate the complete acclimatization of Spaniards in some of the hottest parts of South America. Although we have here nothing to do with mixed races, yet the want of fertility in these has been often taken to be a fact inherent in the mongrel race, and has been also sometimes held to prove that neither the European nor his half-bred offspring can maintain themselves in the tropics. The following observation is therefore of interest:—

The following example of divergent acclimatization of the same race to hot and cold zones is very interesting, and will conclude our extracts from Spruce’s valuable notes:—