April 23, 1903] 



NA TURE 



;s 7 



all its members having the same parents, grandparents, 

 uncles and aunts, and every other ascending or col- 

 lateral relationship. It is not strictly so as regards 

 descent, because the children of each brother or sister 

 are nephews or nieces to all the others, but this material 

 exception leads practically to no confusion. A frater- 

 nity is, therefore, treated as a compound unit, the in- 

 dividuals who form it being distinguished by their 

 several names. Thus Rose Gore, 205, serves as a 

 complete definition of her. The husbands and wives of 

 the fraternity 205 belong severally to fraternities of their 

 own, the numbers of which are attached to their names ; 

 thus the husband of Rose Gore, 205, is Stephen Bell, 

 270. Her father, Fred Gore, belongs to group 101. 

 and her mother, Mary Drew, to group 144. Both of 

 these latter groups are printed here. Each parental 

 couple heads a new group; thus, Fred. Gore, 101, and 

 Marv Drew, 144, combine to form the head of the 

 new group 205. Similarly, Rose Gore, 205, and 

 Stephen Bell, 270, form that of the new group 315. 

 It must be clearly understood that there is no relation 

 between these numbers as such ; they indicate no more 

 than the No. of the page on which the new group 

 happens to be entered. Every individual who is married 

 and has children is entered in at least three different 

 family groups, (1) that of his own fraternity, (2) in 

 that of his wife, (3) in that in which he appears as 

 one of the parental couple. If he marries a second 

 time and has children, his name will appear as a parent 

 in a fourth group, thus Mary Drew, 144, is entered as 

 mother in each of the two groups 328 and 340. It will 

 be noticed that the day and month of birth is added 

 to the name of each parent. This is a useful distinc- 

 tion in some Welsh and Scotch pedigrees where the 

 same names repeatedly occur. It is a distinction of 

 great efficacy, as the chance against a namesake 

 having the same birthday is about 365 to 1. If so, 

 the chance against a namesake couple having the same 

 birthdays as the couple in question would be 365x365, 

 or upwards of 130,000, to 1. 



Employment of the Tables. — Let us follow out the 

 relationships of Frank Gore, 205, as far as these three 

 tables permit. His father, as we know, is Fred. Gore, 

 101. Referring to 101, we see that his paternal grand- 

 father and grandmother are John Gore, 31, and Amy 

 Myers, 43, respectively, so we should have to refer to 

 the family groups 31 and 43, which are not given here, 

 to know more about them and their own near relations. 

 We see that Frank Gore, 205, has two paternal uncles, 

 George and Stephen ; George married Jane Boyle, 136, 

 and has the children described in 211; Stephen is un- 

 married. Frank has also three paternal aunts, Ellen, 

 Susan and Fanny ; the second unmarried, Ellen 

 married to John Piers, who has children in 237, and 

 Fanny married to Harry Pitt, 163, who has children 

 in 223. Jane Boyle's immediate relations are to be 

 found in 136, those of John Piers in 237, and those of 

 Harry Pitt in 163. The fraternities 211, 237 and 223 

 exhaust the list of Frank Gore's first cousins on the 

 paternal side. The group 144 enables an equally com- 

 plete analysis to be made on the maternal side. We 

 can proceed in this way step by step as far as material 

 exists. Intermarriages create no difficulty. The ex- 

 treme confusion that arises from the ambiguous words 

 of uncle, aunt, cousin, &c, is wholly eliminated by 

 this method of working, also that which is due to half- 

 blood relationships. 



It should be remarked that information is usually to 

 be obtained with ease concerning any particular family 

 group, because a knowledge of its details is shared 

 by many persons. The father and the mother each 

 know, of course, the names of their own children, and 

 of those to whom they are married, in all but very ex- 

 ceptional cases. Similarly each brother and sister 



NO. 1/4/, VOL. 67] 



knows the full Christian name of his father and 

 mother, and the mother's maiden name also, as well 

 as the names and order of birth of his or her own 

 brothers and sisters. This same knowledge is usually 

 shared by the brothers- and sisters-in-law. 



This method of fraternal unities and of family groups 

 may be applicable to experiments in breeding animals 

 and plants, but with modification of detail appropriate 

 to each case. Where the breeding season is brief, the 

 birthday would be of small distinctive value, even when 

 the year of birth is added to it. Francis Galton. 



STANDARDISATION. 1 



THE first two publications referred to below are the 

 first direct outcome of the work of the Engineer- 

 ing Standards Committee; the third is very intimately 

 connected with that work. 



The committee was appointed nearly two years ago, 

 and owes its origin to the councils of the five great 

 technical engineering societies acting on the sugges- 

 tion of the council of the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers. 



Its existence is a symptom of the times, an indication 

 of the fact that English engineers have grasped the 

 importance of scientific cooperation and the necessity 

 for organisation on a scientific basis. 



The main committee consists of fourteen representa- 

 tives of the five societies, leaders in the various en- 

 gineering industries which they represent, and these 

 have called to their assistance seven or eight sectional 

 committees and a number of subcommittees to advise 

 on special points. Representatives of the technical 

 Government departments serve on many of these, and 

 the movement has the support of the leading manu- 

 facturers. The work has grown and is growing; in- 

 vestigations of various kinds are needed to elucidate 

 doubtful points before the committees can finally re- 

 port ; some of these are in progress at present at the 

 National Physical Laboratory and elsewhere, and 

 many men are working in a manner unknown before 

 to strengthen English industry and to enable it to 

 compete on favourable terms with foreign rivals. 



Some months since it was announced that the com- 

 mittee dealing with steel structures was prepared to 

 reduce considerably the number of sections to be 

 rolled as a regular thing and stocked by the manu- 

 facturers, and the list it has proposed has just 

 been issued. The committee is to be congratulated 

 on its work. In all cases there has been great re- 

 duction and simplification, a result which will lessen 

 the cost of production by reducing the number of rolls 

 required, and will quicken the rate of supply by per- 

 mitting stocks to be kept on hand. Thus it appeared 

 that some forty-nine or fifty sizes of beams were in 

 common use; these have been reduced to thirty; while 

 for channels, in place of sixty-three, there are to be 

 twenty-seven sizes rolled. 



The recommendations as to rails have not yet been 

 finally issued; at present there are seventy-three 

 different sizes of tramway rails rolled; it is hoped to 

 reduce these to five. 



Messrs. Dorman Long and Co. 's new list referred 

 to above is based on these standard sizes, of which a 

 large supply is kept in stock at their various depots. 

 The list gives, in addition to the dimensions and 

 weight of the beams, various other data of importance, 

 e.g. the moments of inertia about certain axes, and 

 the safe distributed load for spans of various lengths. 



1 British Standard Sections issued by the Engineering Standards Com- 

 mittee. 



British Standard Beams. (Dorman Long and Co. 

 Standard Sizes of Conductors. (Cable Makers' Association. 



