28 HEREDITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF NAVAL OFFICERS. 



among women, as the two cases of Mary Anne Talbot and Hannah Snell 

 (Encycl. Brit.) indicate; but the rarity of such cases suggests that they 

 are examples of psychic sex inversion. Nomadism, which leads to a fond- 

 ness for travel equally on land or sea, is not rare among women; and the 

 wives of sea captains not infrequently accompany their husbands; but 

 these are not typical cases of sea-lust. It is possible, accordingly, that the 

 irresistible appeal of the sea is a trait that is a sort of secondary sex 

 character in males of certain races, just as a large rose comb is a male 

 characteristic in some races of poultry. Females of the race have rose 

 combs, to be sure, but they are relatively small things; but the sons of 

 such females have* huge combs again. As the great development of the 

 comb of the cock occurs under the stimulus of the secretions of the male 

 germ gland, so the appeal of the sea develops under the secretion of 

 the germ gland in the boy or young man who belongs to a thalassophilic 

 race. The behavior of this secondary sex character in heredity seems 

 to be like this: If the father is thalassophilic and the mother belongs to a 

 nonthalassophilic race, the sons will not be thalassophilic, as we see in the 

 case of the sons of Hiram Paulding. When, on the other hand, both 

 father's and mother's close male relatives are thalassophilic, probably the 

 entire fraternity of the propositus will be so. This particular combination 

 is less often realized than would be useful for testing this hypothesis. The 

 following cases realize it approximately: 



36, PREBLE. Father, sailing master and brigadier general: mother's father, a 

 ship-master: sons: 1, Edward, commodore; 2, Ebenezer, a distinguished merchant 

 of Boston; 3, Joshua, little known; 4, a sea trader from 16 to 61; 5 a sea trader. 



As in those days the merchants often sailed, or sailed with, then- ships, 

 Ebenezer was probably attracted to the business of merchant through a 

 love of the sea, or began as a sailor before he was a merchant. 1 If we sup- 

 pose this to have been the case with Ebenezer (and omitting the little-known 

 Joshua), then all 4 of the known sons of this mating were thalassophilic. 



Again John Adolph Dahlgren married the daughter of a merchant 

 and had 3 sons. One became a commander in the navy, and the other 2 

 were fighters in the Civil War. Of these, 1 died in battle at the age of 22; 

 the other became United States consul at Rome. 



George Smith Blake married the daughter of Commodore James 

 Barren. Their only son was Francis Blake, who became a lieutenant com- 

 mander in the navy during the Civil War and was a gallant fighter. 



Captain Moses Brown married a Coffin of Newburyport, a center 

 of sailor-folk. Of his 4 sons we know nothing about the youngest. Of 

 the others, 2 became sea captains and 1 a cooper on shipboard. 



1 Marvin, W. L. (1902. The American Merchant Marine. New York: Scribners. 444 pp.), says 

 p. 81: "Every capable officer (of a ship) of those times looked forward to becoming 

 a merchant himself." In the E. R. O. records (57: 462) we find: "J. S. (born 1748) 

 early engaged in commerce with the West Indies and commanded his own vessels." 

 He served in the navy during the Revolution. 



