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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 752 



generation with great persistence. As 

 long as these questions are still so far from 

 being settled, it seems necessary to take 

 into consideration the possibility of a 

 change of type in the immigrants, due to 

 the new surroundings in which they have 

 been placed. Some anthropologists in 

 America have even gone so far as to claim 

 that the geographical environment affects 

 the European in such a way that he begins 

 to resemble the Indian type. I have failed 

 to find, so far, even a trace of evidence on 

 which this opinion can be based. 



The only indication that I can offer 

 which might suggest an influence of en- 

 vironment is an observation which I made 

 a number of years ago in Massachusetts, 

 where I found that the variability of type 

 was remarkably low, considering the mixed 

 composition of the population— a variabil- 

 ity which is less than the corresponding 

 values obtained in Europe. But a sporadic 

 observation of such a character is, of 

 course, entirely insufficient to solve a prob- 

 lem of this magnitude. It would seem to 

 my mind that one of the most important 

 and fundamental investigations that have 

 to be made in regard to the question of the 

 biological assimilation of immigrants is a 

 thorough discussion of the sameness or 

 change of type of the second and third 

 generations. 



It has often been observed that the local 

 tyjies which have developed in America 

 show a considerable amount of individuali- 

 zation. Some of this may very well be due 

 to the influence of environment. It might 

 be, for instance, that the tallness of the 

 people of Kentucky is due to the lime- 

 water of that area. This would be in ac- 

 cord with the observations made by Koese 

 in Gotha, who found that the stature in 

 that city had changed with the introduc- 

 tion of hard water. It will certainly be 

 possible to carry through this inquiry 

 among a people like the Italians or Swedes, 



where the anthropometrieal conditions of 

 the home country are fairly well known, 

 while for many other nationalities parallel 

 inquiries in Europe and in America would 

 be necessary. Even if, by extended in- 

 quiries into the physical characteristics of 

 the descendants of immigrants, the modi- 

 fications of their type should become well 

 known, the problem would stiU remain. In 

 how far do these types increase in a pure 

 state after their migration, in how far do 

 they tend to become extinct, and what ten- 

 dency they have to mix with the rest of the 

 population. It seems best to defer a dis- 

 cussion of this question until after consid- 

 eration of the influence of race intermix- 

 ture. 



Here we may consider again the physical 

 effect of intermixture and the propagation 

 of mixed types independently. I regret to 

 say that the available information in re- 

 gard to this point is, if anything, more 

 meager than that relating to the modifica- 

 tion of types after their migration into this 

 country. The fundamental question that 

 must be asked is, whether the mixture of 

 two distinct types of man tends to produce 

 an intermediate homogeneous type in which 

 certain of the characteristics of the parents 

 appear blended, or whether the resultant 

 tends to exhibit reversion to the parental 

 types. This reversion may again be two- 

 fold. We may either find a complete re- 

 version to one of the component parental 

 types, or we may fiind a mixture of traits, 

 some resembling the one parent, some the 

 other parent. Obviously this question is 

 most intimately related to the whole study 

 of Mendelian inheritance, which occupies 

 such a prominent place in the work of mod- 

 ern biologists. So far, the results obtained 

 from a study of human types are few in 

 number. I believe the earliest observation 

 in regard to this subject was made by Felix 

 von Luschan, who found as early as 1884 

 that the inhabitants of the south coast of 



