It has been thought, that both _national features and colour_ might probably have been given them at this time, because these would have assisted the confusion of language, by causing them to disperse into tribes, and would have united more firmly the individuals of each, after the dispersion had taken place.

But this is improbable: first, because there is great reason to presume that Moses, who has mentioned the confusion of language, would have mentioned these circumstances also, if they had actually contributed to bring about so singular an event: secondly, because the confusion of language was sufficient of itself to have accomplished this; and we cannot suppose that the Deity could have done any thing in vain: and thirdly, because, if mankind had been dispersed, each tribe in its peculiar hue, it is impossible to conceive, that they could have wandered and settled in such a manner, as to exhibit that regular gradation of colour from the equator to the poles, so conspicuous at the present day.
These are the only periods, which there has been even the shadow of a probability for assigning; and we may therefore conclude that the preceding observations, together with such circumstances as will appear in the present chapter, will amount to a demonstration, that the difference of colour was never caused by any interposition of the Deity, and that it must have proceeded therefore from that _incidental co-operation of causes_, which has been before related.
What these causes are, it is out of the power of human wisdom positively to assert: there are facts, however, which, if properly weighed and put together, will throw considerable light upon the subject.

These we shall submit to the perusal of the reader, and shall deduce from them such inferences only, as almost every person must make in his own mind, on their recital.
The first point, that occurs to be ascertained, is, "What part of the skin is the seat of colour ?" The old anatomists usually divided the skin into two parts, or lamina; the exteriour and thinnest, called by the Greeks _Epidermis_, by the Romans _Cuticula_, and hence by us _Cuticle_; and the interiour, called by the former _Derma_, and by the latter _Cutis_, or _true skin_.

Hence they must necessarily have supposed, that, as the _true skin_ was in every respect the same in all human subjects, however various their external hue, so the seat of colour must have existed in the _Cuticle_, or upper surface.
Malphigi, an eminent Italian physician, of the last century, was the first person who discovered that the skin was divided into three lamina, or parts; the _Cuticle_, the _true skin_, and a certain coagulated substance situated between both, which he distinguished by the title of _Mucosum Corpus_; a title retained by anatomists to the present day: which coagulated substance adhered so firmly to the _Cuticle_, as, in all former anatomical preparations, to have come off with it, and, from this circumstance to have led the ancient anatomists to believe, that there were but two lamina, or divisible portions in the human skin.
This discovery was sufficient to ascertain the point in question: for it appeared afterwards that the _Cuticle_, when divided according to this discovery from the other lamina, was semi-transparent; that the cuticle of the blackest negroe was of the same transparency and colour, as that of the purest white; and hence, the _true skins_ of both being invariably the same, that the _mucosum corpus_ was the seat of colour.
This has been farther confirmed by all subsequent anatomical experiments, by which it appears, that, whatever is the colour of this intermediate coagulated substance, nearly the same is the apparent colour of the upper surface of the skin.

Neither can it be otherwise; for the _Cuticle_, from its transparency, must necessarily transmit the colour of the substance beneath it, in the same manner, though not in the same degree, as the _cornea_ transmits the colour of the _iris_ of the eye.