125 



NA TURE 



[December 12, 1907 



work has hitherto j^iven us so effective a series of 

 coloured petrotfraphic illustrations. We are thus not 

 quite sure about the description of the pyroxene- 

 andcsite from Bohemia on plate v., because the 

 drawings so closely resembles the rock of Tichlovvitx, 

 with its brown hornblende in the groundmass, its 

 monoclinic pyroxene, and its patches of zeolites as 

 the only pale constituents. Again and again we 

 could name the locality of the rock selected from the 

 accurate details of the illustration ; and when we turn 

 to the descriptive text, u-e find very little room for 

 criticism. G. A. J. C. 



Inflammation. An Introduction to the Study of Path- 

 ology. Being the reprint (revised and enlarged) 

 of an article in Prof. .'Mlbutt's " System of Medi- 

 cine." By Prof. J. George Adami. Pp. xvi + 240. 

 (London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1907.) Price 

 5s. net. 

 Rkprints in book form of articles appearing in larger 

 volumes are not always desirable, but in the present 

 instance so much has been added to the matter as 

 virtually to constitute a new work. We congratulate 

 Prof, ."^dami heartily on the successful issue of an 

 arduous task; no one knows how difficult until he 

 attempts to write on inflammation. The subject of 

 inflammation, forming, as it does, the fundamental 

 basis of pathology, and it might be said also of the 

 science and practice of medicine, is beset with diffi- 

 culties. The literature on it is voluminous and be- 

 wildering, and pathologists owe a debt of gratitude to 

 Prof. Adami for having the courage to attack it. The 

 matter is divided into sections ; the first gives a 

 general survey of the inflammatory process, the second 

 deals with the various factors of the process — the part 

 played by the leucocytes, the exudate, the blood- 

 vessels, the nervous system, cells of the part, and the 

 temperature changes ; the third section deals with 

 general considerations, and includes a chapter on the 

 principles of treatment of the inflammatory state. 

 Every statement made is based on published work, to 

 which the reference is appended (and the book there- 

 fore forms a valuable bibliogrnohy on the subject of 

 inflammation), and critical additions and summaries 

 are liberally interspersed. The book is well and 

 sufficiently illustrated, and no student of pathology 

 can do without it. R. T. Hewlett. 



yotes on Maritime Meteorology. By Commander 

 M. W. Campbell Hepworth, C.B. Pp. viii + qo; 

 7 plates. (London : George Philip and Son, Ltd., 

 1907.) Price 2S. 6d. net. 

 This work consists of papers contributed to societies 

 and institutions between 1883 and 1900, compiled 

 while the author was on active service afioat. Two 

 of them, occupying nearly half the book, are of a 

 more general nature than the rest, and deal with 

 meteorology as a factor in naval warfare and with 

 the value of meteorological observations at sea. The 

 author contends that, given two opposing fleets equal 

 in all respects, " the victory in a series of engage- 

 ments shall be to the fleet in the direction of whose 

 movements meteorology shall have given the greatest 

 aid," and some striking instances are cited of the 

 value of weather knowledge. The other papers are 

 of a more special character, and relate chiefly to the 

 n.-iviiration of the Indian and Pacific oceans. Taken 

 in connection with the useful charts dealing with the 

 marine meteorology of those oceans published bv the 

 .Xdmiraltv and the Meteorological Office, the results 

 of investigations by so experienced a seaman and so 

 keen an observer as the author of the work in ques- 

 tion will be »l great interest and value to those now 

 afloat. 



NO. 1989. VOL. yyl 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



{The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of N.ature. 

 jVo notice is taken of anonymous communications.] 



Mu'attos. 



Mr. H. G. Wells, in his interesting book " The P'uture 

 in .America " (1906), lells {pp. 269-270) a story at second- 

 hand which apparently, however, he accepts as accurate 

 in perfect good faith. I transcribe the facts as they were 

 given to him : — 



" .\ few years ago a young fellow came to Bostin from 

 New Orleans. Looked all right. Dark — but he explained 

 that by an Italian grandmother. Touch of French in him 

 too. Popular. Well, he made advances to a Boston girl — 

 good family. Gave a fairly straight account of himse'f. 

 .Married." 



The offspring of the marriage was a son : — 



" Black as your hat. Absolutely negroid. Projecting 

 jaw, thick lips, frizzy hair, flat nose — everything." 



In this case Mr. Wells observes : — " The taint in the 

 blood surges up so powerfully as to blacken the child at 

 birth beyond even the habit of the pure-blooded negro." 



This is, at any rate, ultra-Mendelian. Such a story 

 would hardly be told and repeated unless it corresponded 

 to popular belief. What one would like to have is precise 

 evidence that such cases actually occur. If verifiable, it 

 would be of great importance both on scientific and 

 political grounds. I find, however, nothing resembling it 

 in such authorities as I am able to consult. No such case 

 is mentioned by either Darwin or Delage, though neither 

 would have been likely to pass over such a striking instance 

 of reversion had it been known to him. .Sir William 

 Lawrence, in his " Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and 

 the Natural History of Man " (1822), a book still worth 

 consulting, has industriously collected (pp. 472-484) all the 

 facts available at the time about mulattos, but has no 

 instance of the kind. 



The problem involved is thus stated by Gallon (" Natural 

 Inheritance," p. 13) : — " A solitary peculiarity that blended 

 freely with the characteristics of the parent stock, would 

 disappear in hereditary transmission." He then discusses 

 the case of a European mating in a black population : — 

 "If the whiteness refused to blend with the blackness, 

 some of the offspring of the white man would be wholly 

 white and the rest wholly black. The same event would 

 occur in the grandchildren, mostly, but not exclusively, in 

 the children of the white offspring, and so on in subsequent 

 generations. Therefore, unless the white stock became 

 wholly extinct, some undiluted specimens of it would make 

 their appearance during an indefinite time, giving it re- 

 peated chances of holding its own in the struggle for 

 existence." Mutatis mutandis, the same law would hold 

 for a black mating in a white population. 



Lawrence quotes a single case (p. 279) in which a refusal 

 to blend certainly existed : — " A ncgress had twins by an 

 Englishman : one was perfectly black, with short, woolly 

 curled hair; the other was light, with long hair." He also 

 points out that in " mixed breeds " '* children may be 

 seen like their grandsires, and unlike the father and 

 mother," a fact observed by Lucretius. 



" Fit quoque, ut interdum similes existere avorum 

 Possint, et referant proavorum saepe figuras." 



On the other hand, according to Lawrence, there was 

 a legal process in the Spanish colonies of South America 

 by which a mulatto could claim a declaration that he was, 

 at any rate politically, free from any taint of black blood. 

 Of Quinterons, who were one-sixteenth black, he says : — 

 " It is not credible that any trace of mixed origin can 

 remain in this case," and even of Tercerons, who were one- 

 quarter black, " in colour and habit of body they cannot be 

 distinguished from their European progenitors." He says 

 (p. 274) that Jamaica Quadroons " are not to be distin- 

 guished from whites." But " there is still a contamination 

 of dark blood, although no longer visible. It is said to 

 betray itself sometimes in a relic of the peculiar strong 

 smell of the great-grandmother." If these statements can 

 be relied upon, Galton's hypothetical law does not appear 



