Note 218 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
Cook's Narrative calls their color an effete white, like that of the southern nations of Europe. Meares expressly says that some of the females, when cleaned, were found to have the fair complexions of Europe.
Somewhat further north, at Cloak Bay, in lat. 54° 10', Humboldt remarks, that "in the midst of copper-colored Indians, with small, long eyes, there is a tribe with large eyes, European features, and a skin less dark than that of our peasantry."—New Spain, vol. i., p. 145.
Humboldt considers this as the strongest argument of an original diversity of race which has remained unaffected by climate.