Heredity or Environment 139 There are many who claim that, by intermarriage and a gradual attenuation of pure Negro blood, the Negro will ultimately be merged with the white race - his children indistinguishable from them. There may be something in this matter that should intrigue everyone interested in eugenics or heredity. For according to the last U. S. Census seven out of every ten American Negroes have Caucasian blood in their veins. These statistics afford basis for very interesting speculation. The mulatto, the offspring of a Caucasian and a Negro, began with the institution of slavery, the father might even be the respected Southern plantation owner, living in the big white mansion, and the mother a black Negress, living in the lowly cabin, with a mud floor, on the outskirts of the plantation. The quadroon is a composite, made by mixing together Caucasian and mulatto blood. In Negro social life the quadroon is considered better than the mulatto. Socially superior to the quadroon is the octoroon, the offspring of a Caucasian and a quadroon. Generally speaking, it requires a span of about eighty years, or even more, to produce the octoroon, who now represents the last link in the development, or evolution, of the Negro into the Caucasian. The offspring of the Caucasian and the octoroon will, perhaps, result in an apparently Nordic type. What this new race will develop into, commercially, socially and morally, will present an interesting study for those who delve into such matters. Loss to the World if the Negro Race Should Be Absorbed However, this gradual transition of the Negro into an apparent Nordic type has brought about curious changes in thought and action - and even in speech, as witness the languid drawl of a Southern girl, who has been brought up by a Negro "mammy." Everyone who has been thrown much in contact with the Negro will testify to the persistence in him of many child-like