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Show 198 ON THE SLAVERY AND CoMMERCE "?preaching to it; and the colour becomes hghter or darker in proportion as the diftance from the equator is either greater or le.fs. The Europeans are the faireil: inhabitants of the world. Thofe fituated in the moil: fouthern regions of Europe, have in their corpus mucqjimz a tinge of the dark hue of their African neighbours : hence the epidemick complexion, prevalent among them, is n~arly of the colour of the pickled Spamih ohve; while in this country, and thofe fituated nearer the north pole, it appears to be nearly, if not abfolutely, white, Thefe are * faCl:s, which anatomy has eil:abliihed; and we acknowledge them to be :uch, that we cannot diveil: ourfelvcs of the 1dea, that clzinate has a confidcrable n1arc in producing a difference of colour. Others we know, have invented other hypothefes: but all of them have been inil:antly refuted, as unable to expla1n the difficulties for which they were advanced, and as abfolutely contrary to faCl:: anq the inventors themfelves ~ We .beg leave to return our thanks here to a gcntlcmans emm:nt m the medical line, who furniJhed us with the above~ menuoned facts. · have oF THE HuMAN SPECIES. have been obliged, almoil: as foon as they have propofcd them, to acknowledge them deficient. The only ohjcCl:ion of any confequence, that has ever been made to the hypothefis of climate, is this, that people under the fame parallels are not exa8ly of the fame colour. But this is no 9bjeCl:ion in faCl:: for it does not follow that thofe countries, which are at an equal diil:ance from the equator, fhould have their climates the fame. Indeed nothing is more contrary to experience than this. Climate depends upon a variety of accidents. High mountains, in the neighbourhood of a place, make it cooler, by chilling the air that is carried over them by the winds. Large fpreading fucculent plants, if among the produCtions of the foil, have the fame effeCl:: they afford agreeable cooling !hades, and a moiil: atmofphere from their contil1Ual exhalations, by which the arclour of the fun is confiderably abated. While the foil, on the other hand, if of a fandy nature, retains the heat in an uncommon degree, and makes the fummers confiderably hotter than thofe which are found to exifl in the fame latitude,. where the foil is different. To N 4· this |