Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/198

 COMPLEXION COMPRESSIBILITY weak and running with water if the sun shines on them, so that in daytime they care not to go abroad, unless it be in a cloudy, dark day. Besides, they are a weak people in comparison with others, and not very fond of hunting or other laborious exercises, nor do they delight in such ; but notwithstanding their being thus sluggish and dull in the daytime, yet when moonshiny nights come, they are all life and activity, running abroad into the woods and turning as fast by moonlight, even in gloom and shade, as other Indians by day." Dr. Davy, in speaking of an albino in Ceylon, where they are often seen, says : " The young albino 12 years of age, in England, and certainly in Norway, would not be considered peculiar, for her eyes were light blue, and not particularly weak, and her complexion fresh and rosy. She had considerable pretensions to beauty, and was not without admirers among her country- men. The Indians are of the opinion that the white race were propagated from an albino, and there is a tradition among them to this effect." However marked may be the influence of climate and surrounding circumstances upon the complexion, it is incompetent to produce such changes as to lead the ethnologist to mis- take one race for another. The hue of the European, although it may exhibit a deeper shade under some circumstances than under others, is the same under the influence of the intense heat of the East Indies or the tropical climate of South America, and is entirely dis- tinct from that of the natives of those countries. The three races which exist side by side in America are never merged in each other by mere contiguity, but continue separate and distinct except when a commingling of the races gives rise to a progeny that partakes of the character of both parents. The children of Europeans, of negroes, and of Indians, born in America, in the course of a few days after their birth begin to assume the complexion of their parents. Those of Caucasian parentage, whether natives of a high or low latitude, ex- hibit the fair complexion due to their origin, which may be retained by proper care through life ; but those born of American or Ethiopian parents, however carefully guarded from the influence of the heat and sun, rapidly acquire the dark or tawny hue of the race from which they have sprung. Nor is the force of this position lessened by the observation of those travellers who have found the different tribes of the white race that have for centuries in- habited the tropics of a hue nearly as dark as that of the natives of the countries where they are found. A close examination in each of these cases would develop a marked difference between the shade of color of the white and that of the colored person, as distinct in char- acter and as easily discerned as are the fea- tures that distinguish the one race from the other. The inferences to be drawn from these facts are : 1, that no essential anatomical dif- ference exists between the skin of the white and colored races; 2, that climate, tempera- ture, and exposure are competent to produce marked changes in the complexion ; 3, that these changes under no circumstances proceed so far as to bestow the complexion peculiar to one race upon the individuals of another ; 4, that children of white parents, under every condition of climate, are born fair ; and 5, that the children of parents of colored races partake of the complexion of their parents from their earliest infancy. COMPLINE, or Complin (Fr. complies; Lat completorium, from complere, to complete, and in some liturgical books complini), in the Ro- man Catholic breviary, the complement of vespers or evening office, and the conclusion or last of the " daily " canonical hours, as distinguished from the " nocturnal " hours. According to Sozomen (Hist. Eccl., iii. 13) and Cassian (Inst., iii. 2), the psalms now recited at compline formed originally part of the ves- per office. This is plainly indicated by St. Basil (In Beg. Fits. Disp., interr. 18), who says that " when the shades of evening begin to fall " we should sing the 90th psalm, Qui habitat in adjutorio altissimi, which is now the principal psalm of compline, while the hymn begins Te lucis ante terminum. COMPLtTEtfSIM POLYGLOT. See BIBLE. COMPOSITE ORDER, one of the five orders of architecture, a combination made by the Romans of the Ionic and Corinthian styles, and hence also called the Roman order. It differs from the Corinthian chiefly in having upon the capital the volutes of the Ionic order ; and its frieze and other of its members admit of a richer decoration. Among the principal examples of this order at Rome are the temple of Bacchus, the arches of Septimius Severus and of Titus, and the arch in the baths of Dio- cletian. (See AECHITECTURE.) COMPOUND BLOWPIPE. See BLOWPIPE. COMPRESSIBILITY, that property of matter which allows the volume of a body to be di- minished by pressure, being a consequence as well as an evidence of porosity. The word porosity as used here does not signify the or- dinary sensible porosity of bodies, such as is observed in a sponge or in wood, but that which has received the name of physical poros- ity. The physical pores are the exceedingly small interstices between the molecules of mat- ter of which a body is formed, so minute in sol- ids and liquids as to allow the molecules to re- main within the sphere of cohesive attraction. Examples of compressibility are furnished by the reduction of liquids under pressure, and of compact masses of metal by hammering. The relative compressibilities of different bodies are readily ascertained by subjecting them to a given pressure and observing the diminution of volume resulting in each, care being taken that the temperatures are the same, because each degree of heat increases the repulsion between the molecules. Under the same pressure, a solid heated is larger than when cold. When bodies