_EXPERIMENT XI_
The Cause of the Blackness of those many Nations, which by one common Name
we are wont to call _Negroes_, has been long since Disputed of by Learned
Men, who possibly had not done amiss, if they had also taken into
Consideration, why some whole races of other Animals besides Men, as Foxes
and Hares, are Distinguish'd by a Blackness not familiar to the Generality
of Animals of the same Species; The General Opinion (to be mention'd a
little lower) has been rejected even by some of the Antient Geographers,
and among our Moderns _Ortelius_ and divers other Learned Men have
Question'd it. But this is no place to mention what thoughts I have had to
and fro about these Matters: Only as I shall freely Acknowledge, that to me
the inquiry seems more Abstruse than it does to many others, and that
because consulting with Authors, and with Books of Voyages, and with
Travellers, to satisfie my self in matters of Fact, I have met with some
things among them, which seem not to agree very well with the Notions of
the most Classick Authors concerning these things; for it being my Present
Work to deliver rather matters Historical than Theorys, I shall Annex Some
few of my Collections, instead of a Solemn Disputation.
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