Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/196

 192 COMPLEXION entirely on the cuticle. The pigment is con- tained principally in the cells of the deep layer or rete mucosum, and appears to fade as they approach the surface, but even the superficial part possesses a certain degree of color." Ex- posure to light exercises a marked influence over the development of the pigment cells of the skin, and hence many persons become spot- ted with brown freckles under the stimulus of a summer sun. In the same manner the light skin of the European acquires a swarthy hue when exposed to a long continuance of the sun's rays in a tropical climate, which is due to a development of dark pigment in the cells of the cuticle. Bishop Heber, in his observa- tions on India, says: "It is remarkable to observe how surely all these classes of men (white Persians, Greeks, Tartars, Turks, and Arabians) in a few generations, even without intermarriage with the Hindoos, assume the deep olive tint, little less dark than the negro, which seems natural to the climate. The Por- tuguese have during 300 years' residence in India become as black as Caffres." " The hot- test portion of the globe," says Dr. Pickering, " appears to be about IV degrees in width, counting from lat. 27 N., and extends from the Atlantic to the Ganges. One third, per- haps, of this immense tract is inhabited by the white race, although under a physical aspect that would not readily be recognized by Eu- ropeans. The complexion, always dark, is in frequent instances sufficiently so to conceal a flush; indeed, the Malay brown complexion seems to preponderate, and I have seen Arabs of deeper hue who were apparently of un- mixed descent. In short, the white race is here protean or polymorphous, and exhibits a di- versity in feature and complexion that I have not found in the other races." Dr. Smith says that the influence of climate on the human complexion is demonstrated by well known and important events within the memory of history. From the Baltic to the Mediterranean the different latitudes of Europe are marked by different shades of color; and in tracing the origin of the fair German, the dark-colored Frenchman, and the swarthy Spaniard and Sicilian, it has been proved that they are all derived from the same parent stock, or at least from nearly resembling nations. The south- ern provinces of France, of Italy, of Spain, and of other European countries, are distin- guished from the northern by a much deeper shade of complexion; thus, the traveller through Spain will discover that while the ladies of the province of Biscay possess fair complexions, those of Granada and other south- ern provinces are endowed with that dark, swarthy hue which the Spaniards consider as constituting one of the chief elements of beauty. The Georgians and Circassians, who are acknowledged to be the fairest people on the globe, when transferred to a residence in Constantinople lose their delicate complexion and gradually acquire a sallow hue, which in their descendants becomes a dark olive. But perhaps the most striking example is furnished by the Jews, who, by abstaining or being pro- hibited from intermarrying with other nations, form a distinct people in every quarter of the globe, and yet show noticeable shades of com- plexion in different climates. The native popu- lation of the United States furnish a strong il- lustration of the influence of climate over the complexion. Deriving their origin chiefly from the more northern nations of Europe, and es- pecially from the English and Irish, whose com- plexions are remarkably fair, they are found to differ from their ancestors in this respect in a very material degree. A certain paleness of countenance, differing entirely from the marked white and red of the English, strikes the ob- servant traveller at every step of his progress through the United States. The elevated tem- perature of the lowlands in Virginia and Ma- ryland, especially near the seacoast, greatly contributes to impart a darkness to the com- plexion which, when associated with the pale- ness so common to the whole population of the United States, removes them in a most marked manner from their British ancestors. It is very easy to distinguish the natives of the eastern shore in Maryland, and of the counties contiguous to the ocean in Virginia, from the inhabitants of the more elevated districts in these states, as much by the marked sallow- ness of the complexion of the former as by their excitable temperament and spare habit of body. Going still further south, along the seacoast of Georgia and the Carolinas, it is not unusual to meet with individuals, especially among those much exposed to the influence of the sun, who are but a few shades lighter than the aboriginal tribes who formerly peo- pled these states. "If," says Dr. Barton, "these remarkable changes are wrought on the system in the term of a few years, we ought not to be surprised at seeing even the most opposite tints and features produced from the long and permanent operation of moral and physical causes." Yet, notwithstanding the in- fluence exerted by heat in darkening the com- plexion, it is true that many light nations are found in the warmest regions, while there are dark ones resident in the coldest. Lord Kames, M. de Virey, and Prichard have quoted many instances of this kind. "We found," says Humboldt in his " Political Essay on New Spain," "the people of the Rio Negro swarthier than those of the lower Orinoco, and yet the banks of the first of these rivers enjoy a much cooler climate than the more northern regions. In the forests of [Venezuelan] Gui- ana, especially near the sources of the Orinoco, are several tribes of a whitish complexion, the Guiacos, Guajoribs, and Argues, of whom sev- eral robust individuals, exhibiting no symptom of the asthenical malady which characterizes albinos, have the appearance of true mestizos. Yet these tribes have never mingled with Eu- ropeans, and are surrounded with other tribes