170 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



we expect when " black " and " white " are crossed if 

 gametic blending is the process at work ? The result 

 so far as colour is concerned may be an}i;hing. In the 

 absence of actual information, and basing our expectation 

 only upon analogy, we should equally expect the colour 

 of the mulatto to be green, or blue, or violet, as that 

 Avhich it actually is. For in a combination of two bodies 

 by blending, the colour of the separate factors may not 

 count. \\Tien they blend, the properties which each 

 possessed separately, may in the combination be 

 profoundly altered, or even replaced by new quahties 

 altogether. We have an instance of this in the action 

 of silver nitrate upon living tissues. Both of these are 

 colourless, but a person who has been drugged with 

 this substance for a certain period will develope a livid- 

 blue or lead-coloured skin. The question of skin colour 

 is essentially a chemical one, and chemical combinations 

 produce substances having characters which have no 

 relation to those possessed by the constituent substances 

 which enter into the combination before they are 

 combined. Hence the fact that the negro's colour is 

 black and the European's is white, by itself gives us 

 no basis of expectation as to the colour of the offspring. 



But there is one result which we should expect if 

 these two qualities are permanently combined or 

 blended in the sex-cells. Within narrow hmits of varia- 

 tion, we should expect an uniform result. For instance, 

 we should expect that all the germ-cells of the father 

 and all those of the mother would in each case carry one 

 condition only of skin-colour. That is, the father and the 

 mother would in respect to this character each carry only 

 one kind of sex-cell. And, consequently, since all their 

 children Mill develope from fertihsed germ-cells of 

 the same kind, we shall expect that their skin colours 

 will be the same. Such expectation is not in accord 

 A\dth the wide range of variation revealed by Professor 

 Pearson's evidence. The evidence of variation, not only 

 in tint, but in colour, appears to be fatal to the hypothesis 

 of blending. In answer to this, Professor Pearson 

 cannot urge that his general evidence does not relate 

 to families but to a community. Such a plea only carries 

 the question one stage farther back. For the blending 



