194 HEREDITY IN RELATION TO EUGENICS 



some of the islands of Chesapeake Bay show numerous 

 marriages of kin. Thus Arner (1908, p. 16) states that in 

 Smith's Island, separated from the peninsula of Maryland 

 by twelve miles of water "consanguineous marriages have 

 been very frequent until now nearly all are more or less 

 interrelated. Out of a hundred or more families of which 

 I obtained some record, at least five marriages were be- 

 tween cousins." Over 30 per cent of the inhabitants bear 

 one surname (Evans) and they with Bradshaw, Marsh and 

 Tyler comprise about 59 per cent of the population. The 

 resident physician, here, had noted in 3 years in the com- 

 munity of 700 persons no case of idiocy, insanity, epilepsy 

 or deaf mutism. At the tropics, islands appear again. In 

 some parts of the Bahamas there is a record of consanguin- 

 eous marriages. C. A. Penrose (1905, pp. 409-414) has de- 

 scribed the condition at George Island near Eleuthera Is- 

 land and at Hopetown, Abaco Island. In George Island 

 close intermarriage occurs, and there is a large proportion 

 of eye diseases, including cataract, and dwarfs with low 

 mental acumen. At Hopetown there are about 1,000 whites. 

 In 1785 a woman, Wyanne Malone, came from Charlestown, 

 South Carolina, with her four children to Hopetown. Three 

 of them married and settled there, a granddaughter marry- 

 ing a Russell. "From this stock most of the present inhabit- 

 ants of Hopetown have descended and the names of Malone 

 and Russell are constantly met with throughout the settle- 

 ment." At Hopetown consanguineous marriage is accom- 

 panied by deaf mutism, idiocy, insanity (melancholia) and 

 abnormal appendages. 



The island of Bermuda shows the usual consequence of 

 island hfe. A correspondent writes: "In some of the Par- 

 ishes (Somerset and Paget chiefly) there has been much 

 intermarriage, not only with cousins but with double first 

 cousins in several cases. Intermarriage has chiefly caused 



