[footnote] ** Rudolph Wagner, 'Ueber Blendlinge und Bastarderzeugung', in
his notes to the German translation of Prichard's 'Physical History of
Mankind', vol. i., p. 138-150.
The greater number of the contrasts which were formerly supposed to exist,
have disappeared before the laborious researches of Tiedemann on the brain
of negroes and of Europeans, and the anatomical investigations
p 353
of Vrolik and Weber on the form of the pelvis. On comparing the
dark-colored African nations, on whose physical history the admirable work
of Prichard has thrown so much light, with the races inhabiting the islands
of the South-Indian and West-Australian archipelago, and with the Papuas and
Alfourous (Haroforas, Endamenes), we see that a black skin, woolly hair, and
a negro-like cast of countenance are not necessarily connected together.*
[footnote] *Prichard, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 324.
So long as only a small portion of the earth was known to the Western
nations, partial views necessarily predominated, and tropical heat and a
black skin consequently appeared inseparable. "The Ethiopians," said the
ancient tragic poet Theodectes of Phaselis,* "are colored by the near
sun-god in his course with a sooty luster, and their hair is dried and
crisped with the heat of his rays.
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