view, I mention the following fact. The inhabitants of the kingdom of Senaar in Africa are true negroes, a jet-black complexion, thick lips, flat nofe, curled woolly hair. The country itfelf is the hoteft in the world. From the report of a late traveller, they are admirably protected by nature against the violence of the heat. Their skin is to the touch remarkably cooler than that of an European; and is so in reality, no less than two degrees on Farhenheit's thermometer. The young women there are highly prized by the Turks for that quality.

Thus it appears, that there are different races of men fitted by nature for different climates. Upon examination another fact will perhaps alfo appear, that the natural productions of each climate make the most wholesome food for the people who are fitted to live in it. Between the tropics, the natives live chiefly on fruits, feeds, and roots; and it is the opinion of the most knowing naturalifts, that fuch food is of all the most wholefome for the torrid zone; comprehending the hot plants, which grow there to perfection, and tend greatly to fortify the ftomach. In a temperate cli

mate,

mate, a mixture of animal and vegetable food is held to be the moft wholefome; and there both animals and vegetables aཉམས bound. In a cold climate, animals are in plenty, but few vegetables that can ferve for food to man,, What phyficians pronounce upon that head, I know not, bu if we dare venture a conjecture from analogy, animal, food, will be found the most wholefame for fuch as are fitted by nature to live in a cold climate. II galiv M. Buffon, That animals in the fo which can procreate together, and whose progeny can alfo procreate, are of one ipecies, concludes, that all men are of one race or fpecies; and endeavours to fupport that favourite opinion, by afcribing to the cli mate, to food, or to other accidental caufes, all the varieties that are found t are found among men. But is he feriously of opinion, that any operation of climate, or of other accidental caufe, can account for the copper colour and fmooth chin univerfal among the Americans, the prominence of the pu denda univerfal among Hottentot women, or the black nipple no less universal among female Samoides? The thick fogs of the ifland St Thomas may relax the fibres of

the natives, but cannot make them more rigid than they are naturally. Whence then the difference with refpect to rigidity of fibres between them and Europeans, but from original nature? Can one hope for belief in afcribing to climate the low ftature of the Efquimaux, the smallness of their feet, or the overgrown fize of their head; or in afcribing to climate the low ftature of the Laplanders *, and their ugly vifage. Lapland is indeed piercingly cold; but fo is Finland, and the northern parts of Norway, the inhabitants of which are tall, comely, and well proportioned. The black colour of negroes, thick lips, flat nofe, crifped woolly hair, and rank fmell, diftinguish them from every other race of men. The Abyffinians on the contrary are tall and well made, their complexion a brown olive, features well proportioned, eyes large and of a sparkling black, lips thin, a nofe rather high · than flat. There is no fuch difference of climate between Abyffinia and Negroland

* By late accounts it appears that the Laplanders are originally Huns. Pere Hel, an Hungarian, made lately this discovery, when fent to Lapland for making aftronomical obfervations.

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as

as to produce thefe ftriking differences. At any rate, there must be a confiderable mixture both of foil and climate in thefe extenfive regions; and yet not the least mixture is perceived in the people..

If the climate have any commanding influence, it must be difplayed upon. the complexion chiefly; and in that article accordingly our author exults. "Man," fays he," white in Europe, black in Afri

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ça, yellow in Afia, and red in America, "is ftill the fame animal, tinged only "with the colour of the climate. Where "the heat is exceffive, as in Guinea and Senegal, the people are perfectly black; where lefs exceffive, as in Abyffinia, the people are less black; where it is more temperate, as in Barbary and in Ara"bia, they are brown; and where mild,

as in Europe and Leffer Afia, they are "fair (a)." But here he triumphs without a victory he is forc'd to acknowledge, that the Samoides, Laplanders, and Greenlanders, are of a fallow complexion; for which he has the following falvo, that the extremities of heat and of cold produce nearly the fame effects on the fkin.

(a) Book s

But

But he is totally filent upon a fact that alone overturns his whole fyftem of colour, viz. that all Americans without exception are of a copper colour, tho' in that vaft continent there is every variety of climate. The fouthern Chinese are white, tho' in the neighbourhood of the torrid zone; and women of fashion in the ifland Otaheite, who cover themselves from the fun, have the European complexion. Neither doth the black colour of fome Africans, nor the brown colour of others, correfpond to the climate. The people of the defert of Zaara, commonly termed Lower Ethiopia, though exposed to the vertical rays of the fun in a burning fand yielding not in heat even to Guinea, are of a tawny colour, far from being jet-black like negroes. The natives of Monomotapa are perfectly. black, with crifped woolly hair, tho' the fouthern parts of that extenfive kingdom are in a temperate climate. And the Caffres, even those who live near the Cape of Good Hope, are the fame fort of people. The heat of Abyffinia approacheth nearer, to that of Guinea; and yet, as mentioned: above, the inhabitants are not black. Nor will our author's ingenious obfervation concerning

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