The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its ScopeCrampton, Henry Edward
Science
The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its Scope
Crampton, Henry Edward
Evolution
The black slaves of America were all descended from typical negros brought
from the western part of Africa, and they provide us with adequate
illustrations of Ethiopians as a group. In them the stature is above the
average of men in general, specifically about five feet ten inches. The
short jet-black hair is strikingly different from the head covering of the
other great groups of human races; each individual hair is so flat in
cross-section that it curls into a very tight close spiral, and this
brings about a frizzly appearance of the whole head covering. There is
little or no beard, the skin is soft and velvety and of various shades
approaching black in color. The skull is long, the cheek bones are small,
but the most distinctive characteristics of the head are found in the
apelike ridges over the eyes and in the very broad flat nose which
projects only slightly and turns up so that the nostrils open forward to a
marked degree, while in the jaws there is an astonishing divergence from
the Caucasian condition in the great protrusion which causes the angle at
the chin to be about sixty degrees.
The warlike Zulus and other peoples of Southern and Central Africa are
perhaps the most characteristic races in this division. Their relatives
are found to the northward as far as the Sahara desert, along the southern
borders of which they have spread out to the eastward and westward. Fusion
with other races has taken place along this border so that many of these
northern tribes are much lighter than the Zulus in the color of the skin.
But many relatives of the taller African negro are found in other parts of
the world, namely in Australia, and in New Hebrides and New
Caledonia--islands to the north and east of this continent. The Papuan of
New Guinea is a typical negro in all true respects, with strongly marked
Ethiopian characteristics, though there are some differences which are
transitional to the more aberrant natives of Melanesia, which includes
many archipelagos like the Fiji, Bismarck, Marshall, and Solomon islands.
Undoubtedly the most degenerate member of the tall negro division is the
Australian native, the so-called "blackfellow." The bulbous nose and the
well-grown beard mark him off from the typical stock, but his obvious
relationship to this is indicated by the low brain capacity, the prominent
ridges over the eyes, and the heavy projecting jaws.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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