548 



The JoiRXAL of Heredity 



that the younger the parents at l)irth of 

 an in(hvidual, the greater that indi- 

 vidual's chance of long life. This cor- 

 relation extends almost to the j^hysio- 

 logical limit at which reproduction 

 becomes possible. 



In order to continue the investigation 

 of inheritance of longevity, Dr. Bell has 

 founded the Genealogical Record Office, 

 at 1601 Thirty-fifth street, northwest, 

 Washington, D. C, where large num- 

 bers of genealogies are being gathered 

 which include cases of long life in several 

 generations ; as rapidly as these accumu- 

 late in sufficient quantity, they will be 

 subjected to anah'sis. 



In addition to this strictly eugenic 

 investigation. Dr. Bell is continuing 

 his cacogcnic researches, by analyzing 

 in graphical fonn the data contained in 

 Fay's "Marriages of the Deaf." The 

 results leave no room for d(nibt that 

 the most frequent cause of congenital 

 deafness is heredity, and that if the 

 congenitally deaf arc allowed to inter- 

 marry, there is danger, as Dr. Bell 

 pointed out more than a generation ago, 

 of the formation of a deaf variety of the 

 human race in the United States. The 

 figures do not, however, bear out the 

 statement often made by those who 

 have not investigated the subject per- 

 sonally, that marriages between eon- 

 genitalh' deaf persons invariably result 

 in the jjroduction of deaf offspring. 



The Vclta Bureau of Washington, 

 D. C, of which Dr. Bell is the founder, 

 has on hand and is constantly adding to 

 the largest collection of data in the 

 world in regard to the inheritance of 

 deafness. This includes the results of 

 two special censuses made by the 

 United States government, and has 

 never Ix'cn ]jroi)erly analyzed. Any 

 investigator wishing to undertake a 

 piece of statistical work on heredity of 

 the highest practical importance could 

 |)robably secure access to this immense 

 collection of data, and would find that 

 it yielded a maximum return from a 

 minimum amount of work. 



H.\Ri;-I.II' IMZZLINC. 



William V. Blades of the luigenics 

 Record C)ffice, Cold SjjHng Harbor, 

 Long Island, is making a special study 



of hare-lip in man. and in addition to 

 the collection of human pedigrees, is 

 carrying on breeding experiments with 

 scN'cral hare-lip strains of Boston Ter- 

 riers. In the dogs as in man, hare-li]3 

 and cleft-palate are found to be highly 

 hereditary in character, but up to the 

 present Mr. Blades has been unable to 

 determine in what way they are in- 

 herited, the material on hand, although 

 it is considerable in amount, seeming to 

 be insufficient to reveal the existence 

 of any law. The investigation is 

 complicated by the fact that many 

 people endeavor to conceal slight cases 

 of hare-lip, particularly if these have 

 been partly or wholly remedied by 

 surgical operation. Mr. Blades wel- 

 comes inquiries concerning this condi- 

 tion and pro\'idcs blanks for the record- 

 ing of famih' data to anyone interested 

 in the problem and willing to furnish 

 any information, be it even the names 

 and addresses of individuals who may 

 be able to provide material at first 

 or second hand. 



Professor J. McKeen Cattell of 

 Columbia University, New York City, 

 has been engaged for some years on a 

 study of the families of 1,000 American 

 men of science. The data, which are 

 being analyzed from many points of 

 view, are not yet wholly ready for 

 publication. The birth rate is the 

 central point of the investigation; it is 

 decidedly low among this portion of the 

 po])ulation, and evidence indicates that 

 this is largely due to psychological, 

 rather than i)hysiological, reasons. Much 

 of Professor Cattell's work has been the 

 detection and elimination of statistical 

 fallacies, in which this subject i)artic- 

 ularly abounds. Even such mathema- 

 ticians as Francis Galton and Karl 

 Pearson have run into pitfalls in dealing 

 with it; it is, then, only to be expected 

 that investigators of lesser note should 

 often have gone astray, and that re- 

 sult is found to exist in nearl\- all thi^ 

 inibli.shed work. 



Following is a s\'nopsis of his work 

 on this subject : 



"The comi)leted faniilx' of C()ntcm])o- 

 rary scientific men is about 2. the sur- 

 viving family about l.S. and the 

 niunber of sm'viviinj children from 



