that can be urged on the consideration of customs, conformation, or other characteristics. With this conviction before us, we may proceed to the other tribes on the western coast of America, and without being turned from our course because we do not find any records of each one, refer to those who have been described by travellers and admitted by Dr. Prichard upon their accounts as of the description given.
First the natives of Queen Charlotte's Island are said to be the best looking, most intelligent and energetic race on the north-western coast. "Their natural complexion is as white as that of the people of Southern Europe" (p. 433). To the south of this people are tribes distinguished as Nootka Columbians speaking dialects of the same language as the Northerners, which language is considered by Dr. Prichard to have an affinity with the Mexican. All, therefore, may be different migrations from the same quarter, these Nootka Columbians being described as "of smaller stature, fatter and more muscular; their cheekbones are prominent and their complexion though light has more of a copper hue." This would seem to prove that they had been longer residents in the New World and therefore more affected by its climate. Captain Cook and Mr. Anderson in their account of the people of Nootka also say that "the whiteness of the skin appeared almost equal to that of Europeans; though rather of the pale effete cast, which distinguishes that of our southern nations." La Perouse says of them "the color of their skin is very brown, being constantly exposed to the sun, but their children are born as white as any among us" (p. 443). The people of Norfolk Sound speak the same language as those before mentioned and are described by different travellers quoted by Prichard as having skins as white as that of any European (p. 445). Here we may pause to enquire, such being the description given by all travellers of the people on this coast, how we are to account upon the theory of one origin, for their being so white, and so different in color from the other tribes of America. It at any rate proves that here at the first starting we have all the difference imaginable to the alleged general uniformity of the American people, and if this difference is to be ascribed to climate alone, which is certainly said to be more like the climate of Europe than any other part of the New World, then the question is given up of color being a criterion whereby to distinguish the so-called Varieties of Man, inasmuch as in that case, color depends entirely on the climate. That color does so depend on the climate, all observation tends to show, and especially when we find various tribes of
