October 27, 1904] 



NA TURE 



627 



thesis of heredity than to another, but it must be hostile to 

 all treatment which uses statistics without observing the 

 laws of statistical science. The criticism which has been 

 published in Bioiuctril;a upon Mendelian work has attacked 

 its too frequent want of method and of logic, and 1 think 

 no one can have read recent literature without seeing that 

 the criticism has been effective in its aim. Even Prof. 

 Tschermak now allows a large influence to ancestry, 

 although he asserts that the offspring are not distributed " in 

 the proportions of Galton and Pearson." As I have never 

 distributed the offspring in fixed proportions, I may perhaps 

 be content with the admission. 



1 have headed my letter " Mendel's Law," but the diffi- 

 culty is to know what is understood by this term. Mr. 

 Lock reproves me in his " Studies in Plant Breeding in the 

 Tropics " because I distinguished a theory of the pure 

 gamete from pure Mendelianism, for I thought, and still 

 think, Mendel himself considered " dominance " an essential 

 part of his system. Another Mendelian protagonist, Prof. 

 Castle, in his' last paper writes : — " The basic principles of 

 Mendel's law are two, the principle of dominance and the 

 principle of segregation." Which view is the correct one? 

 If Mendel's law be limited to its earliest form, then it may 

 cover .Mendel's own observations and Mr. Lock's maize, 

 but there are many other cases of segregation which it 

 does not cover. So far as I am aware, the only attempt to 

 carry out any form of Mendelianism to its logical con- 

 clusion was produced by one biometrician at the suggestion 

 of a second. I refer to my memoir in the Phil. Trans. — 

 " A Generalised Theory of Alternative Inheritance with 

 Special References to Mendel's Laws." Even then we did 

 not succeed in making the fundamental hypotheses wide 

 enough to cover the case of man, but we did show — what 

 must be obvious on consideration — that a description by 

 modern statistical methods of actual observations need not, 

 as such, be itself opposed to any physiological hypothesis. 

 Out of -Mendelianism came on analysis the condemned " law 

 of regression " and the diminishing correlations of the 

 " ancestral law " whenever a population springing from 

 hybrids mated at random. 



One might at least have hoped that this result would 

 have demonstrated how idle it is to contrast a school of 

 " -Mendelians " with one of " Ancestrians. " It is, I fear, 

 however, vain for the biometrician to try and right himself 

 with the non-mathematically trained biologist. Notwith- 

 sUmding that in every generation dealt with in mv memoir 

 the fundamental idea of Mendel is accepted and the re- 

 irossing of the parental forms with each member of the 

 generation occurs and is treated as giving its Mendelian 

 result, Mr. Lock in his " Studies in Plant Breeding " states 

 that I entirely ignore .Mendel's demonstration of the truth 

 of his hypothesis by the process of recrossing with the 

 parental form. The only ignoration seems to be one on 

 .Mr. Lock's part of what lies behind the mathematical 

 symbols. What, then, is the Mendel's law for which Mr. 

 Lock provides a " crucial experiment "? The mere fact of 

 segregation? Two grey-eyed human parents will produce 

 blue- and brown-eyed children ; this has been long known, 

 and is equally crucial. The segregation of recessives in 

 certain cases in the proportion of a quarter? This is a 

 fact, but, accepting the fact, is it needful to accept Mendel's 

 theory to describe it? For Mr. Lock's maize, as for mice, 

 we may fairly ask where the other homozygote is before 

 we accept the experiments even as complete cases of the 

 old simple Mendelianism. But Mr. Lock tells us that not 

 even in 1900 did .Mendelians suppose Mendel's law to hold 

 good for all characters in all species. The experiment is 

 therefore clearly not " crucial " for heredity at large. It 

 is of interest, great interest, as adding to the number of 

 Ihings in which a .Mendelian proportion of i in 4 holds 

 for recessives. Will anyone explain why the absence of 

 colour bulks at present so largely in the characters for which 

 this proportion holds? There must be some physiological 

 ground for it. Karl Pfarson. 



The Formation of Polonium from Radium. 



TiiK idea has for some time been afloat that the polonium 



found in radio-active minerals is a product of the radium 



that they contain. I have recently made an experiment 



which seems to afford considerable evidence that this is 



NO. 1826, VOL. 70] 



the case. Some radium salt of quite low activity (barely 

 sufficient to produce fluorescence), which has been in my 

 possession four years or more, was dissolved in water, and 

 some cupric chloride added. The solution was precipitated 

 with sulphuretted hydrogen (the copper served to give a 

 manageable quantity of precipitate). 



The sulphide was very active. It was dissolved in 

 nitric acid, and a plate of bismuth immersed in the solution, 

 in order to collect polonium, after Marckwald. This plate 

 became intensely active, giving a rays only. The activity 

 was sufficient to' light up a blende screen. The rays showed 

 diminished penetrating power the further they had pene- 

 trated ; their initial penetrating power was exactly the same 

 as that of the rays of the polonium from pitchblende. 



I think it will be agreed that the activity of this bismuth 

 plate may be regarded as due to polonium. Its activity has 

 not yet diminished. The question remains, was this 

 polonium part of the original mineral, or has it been 

 generated since? It is difficult to believe that the radi- 

 ferous barium could have been freed from copper, bismuth, 

 and the other metals in pitchblende, without being freed 

 from polonium too. 



I am making fresh experiments to see whether the form- 

 ation of polonium can be traced in a radium solution 

 initially quite free from it. R- J. Strutt. 



Terling Place, Witham, Essex. 



Misuse of Words and Phrases. 



UNF0RTUN.4TELV a good Style of. writing English is not ai 

 strong point among men of science, especially mathe- 

 maticians. The chief defects may, I think, be classed under 

 three heads. First, grammatical errors, such as Besset 

 functions, the Faraday effect, an uniform density instead of 

 Bessel's functions, Faraday's effect and a uniform density. 

 Secondly, the use of uncouth, inelegant, and inaccurate 

 phrases^ such as coal-stuff-gas, stretch-squeeze ratio, non- 

 singular cubic or quartic curve. Thirdly, a vague, obscure 

 and slovenly mode of constructing sentences, whereby the 

 author envelops his meaning in a cloud of mystery instead 

 of enlightening the understanding of his readers. In fact, 

 the sentences of some authors are so inartistically worded 

 as to produce the impression that they labour under the 

 delusion that a vague and obscure style of writing is evidence 

 of profundity, whilst a clear and lucid one betokens shallow- 

 ness. 



The English language is by no means an easy one to 

 write clearly and concisely, which is due to various causes, 

 amongst which may be mentioned the absence of 

 declensions. In Latin the nouns to which two pronouns 

 respectively refer are always known if (as frequently 

 happens) their genders are different ; but in English con- 

 siderable care is often required in the arrangement of a 

 sentence so as to avoid ambiguity. 



As regards the choice of language, there are two cardinal 

 rules to be observed. In the first place, words are to be 

 construed according to their natural and literal meaning 

 unless there is something in the context to show that they 

 are used in an artificial or secondary sense ; secondly, 

 lucidity and brevity ought always to be aimed at, and 

 circumlocution and verbosity avoided. 



October 22. A. B. Basset. 



The British Association and Referees. 



The correspondence in Nature some time ago respecting 

 referees induces me to send you the following singular 

 example of their unbusiness-like ways in the hope that 

 greater care may be exercised in the future. 



I submitted a radium paper to Section B for the Southport 

 meeting. It was accepted ; the usual proof was printed, 

 revised by me and returned. .At Southport it was decided 

 by a joint committee of Sections A and B that the radium 

 papers held by the latter should be handed over to Section A. 

 This was done. It appears that my paper, now in new 

 hands, was submitted to a referee and condemned. At the 

 close of the meeting I was informed of the fact by the 

 assistant general secretary. In the meantime, however, in 

 reply to my personal inquiries, I had become acquainted with 

 the state of things, and ventured partly to express my views 

 on radio-activitv at the discussion in Section A. In the sub- 



