CAUSE OF DARK COLOUR OF THE SKIN.
Darkness of complexion has been attributed to the sun’s power from the age of Solomon to this day,—“Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me:” and there cannot be a doubt that, to a certain degree, the opinion is well founded. The invisible rays in the solar beams, which change vegetable colour, and have been employed with such remarkable effect in the daguerreotype, act upon every substance on which they fall, producing mysterious and wonderful changes in their molecular state, man not excepted.—Mrs. Somerville.