loo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



From tlie hours of retiring and rising given I judge the aver- 

 age length of sleep to be about eight hours, with few exceptions. 

 Regularity in hours of work, eating, sleeping, and everything in 

 fact, seems to have been rigidly observed. But is not this more 

 the result of the temperament than the cause of long life ? Is not 

 the nervous-sanguine temperament more than any other like a 

 balance-wheel or the pendulum of a clock ? Is it not, after all, the 

 great regulator of which the habits of these people are a manifesta- 

 tion, and to which is due their long life ? And is it not something 

 more than a regulator ; is it not a repairer of waste and decay, a 

 remedy more potent than any drug ? I will not presume to an- 

 swer these questions, for some of my more learned medical friends 

 should be much better able to do so in spite of these new facts 

 which I have. 



Without more accurate and more complete information in rela- 

 tion to the ages of the parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, 

 and the brothers and sisters of these people in question, it is very 

 difficult to make any deductions pertaining to hereditary lon- 

 gevity. Out of all the statistics that have been gathered there 

 are none which are full or accurate enough to base any theory 

 upon, other than that a tendency to long life may be transmitted 

 from parents to children. To gather the necessary statistics in 

 relation to, say, one thousand people, from eighty to ninety, would 

 be extremely difficult, but it must be done before scientific think- 

 ers can make deductions. 



In order to mention all of the really remarkable things shown 

 by this collection of facts, I should be obliged to make a serial of 

 this article. I have tried to mention those only which seemed 

 most interesting and important. One thing, to me, seems to stand 

 out above all others : that a strong vital principle, manifested out- 

 wardly by firm build and constant activity, has been the chief 

 cause of the advanced age of these people. Given a certain organi- 

 zation of mind and body, I think that a man may count on long 

 life — always barring accidents — with reasonable certainty. Such 

 an organization need not be put under any particular conditions 

 of life ; it will seek them out for itself, as a plant seeks out in the 

 earth and the air such elements as aid its development. There is 

 no reason that science can see why a raven should live longer than 

 a snipe, but there is a reason, nevertheless : so we can see no rea- 

 son why a tall, bony, muscular, light-skinned farmer should live 

 longer than a short, stout, dark-skinned clerk ; but I believe there 

 is one, and one that science may some day discover. 



I have one suggestion to make : that our national Government, 

 when it takes the next general census, include in its statistics in- 

 formation about all the people in the United States above ninety, 

 the kind of information to be determined beforehand by the most 



