Now, if climate has any influence on the _mucous substance_ of the body, this variation in the children from the colour of their parents is an event, which must be reasonably expected: for being born white, and not having equally powerful causes to act upon them in colder, as their parents had in the hotter climates which they left, it must necessarily follow, that the same affect cannot possibly be produced.
Hence also, if the hypothesis be admitted, may be deduced the reason, why even those children, who have been brought from their country at an early age into colder regions, have been observed[089] to be of a lighter colour than those who have remained at home till they arrived at a state of manhood.

For having undergone some of the changes which we mentioned to have attended their countrymen from infancy to a certain age, and having been taken away before the rest could be completed, these farther changes, which would have taken place had they remained at home, seem either to have been checked in their progress, or weakened in their degree, by a colder climate.
We come now to the second and opposite case; for a proof of which we shall appeal to the words of Dr.Mitchell[090], in the Philosophical Transactions.

"The _Spaniards_ who have inhabited _America_ under the torrid zone for any time, are become as dark coloured as our native _Indians_ of _Virginia_, of which, _I myself have been a witness_; and were they not to intermarry with the _Europeans_, but lead the same rude and barbarous lives with the _Indians_, it is very probable that, in a succession of many generations, they would become as dark in complexion." To this instance we shall add one, which is mentioned by a late writer[091], who describing the _African_ coast, and the _European_ settlements there, has the following passage.

"There are several other small _Portuguese_ settlements, and one of some note at _Mitomba_, a river in _Sierra Leon_.

The people here called _Portuguese_, are principally persons bred from a mixture of the first _Portuguese discoverers_ with the natives, and now become, in their _complexion_ and _woolly quality_ of their hair, _perfect negroes_, retaining however a smattering of the _Portuguese_ language." These facts, with respect to the colonists of the _Europeans_, are of the highest importance in the present case, and deserve a serious attention.