September 6, 3912] 



SCIENCE 



315 



him by the American Eolliug Mill Co. Now 

 Dr. Cushman contends that this ajialysis, and 

 hence the opinions based upon it, is untrust- 

 worthy because it represents but a single 

 •sample; because the sample was of early man- 

 ufacture; because it does not represent the 

 present product of the American Eolling Mill 

 Co. He does not object to the analysis be- 

 cause it is wrong. And yet the firm in whose 

 defence Dr. Cushman so valiantly struggles 

 quotes on pages 8 and 9 of its booklet " Public 

 Opinion on American Ingot Iron," copyrighted 

 in 1912, and distributed to the public as late 

 as last July, these very pages, 114 and 115, of 

 Dr. Friend's book, on which are given in full 

 this analysis and opinions based upon it. If 

 it is ethical for Dr. Cushman or the American 

 Eolling Mill Co. to take advantage of an error 

 (for which it is responsible) in a scientific 

 book, and to print this as advertising matter 

 and to place before the public what is not 

 true, it surely is not a breach of ethics for me 

 to print in a scientific journal a correction of 

 this error and to state what is true. 



Why limit professional ethics to scientific 

 book reviews? 



William H. Walker 



the inheritance of acquired pigmentation 

 The brief article on " The Inheritance of 

 Skin Color" in Science for August 2, by 

 Dr. H. E. Jordan, of the University of Vir- 

 ginia, contains among other matters the fol- 

 lowing speculation: 



The fact of the apparent histologic identity 

 between brunette and mulatto skins; and the 

 further fact that under protracted exposure to 

 extremes of heat and sun the number of pigment 

 granules is increased in white skin, indicates that 

 pigmentation (dark skin) as evidenced in the 

 negro is an instance of the inheritance of an 

 acquired character. The least that makes a negro 

 a negro is his dark skin. Life-guards in Sep- 

 tember are frequently almost as black. A negro 

 is specifically such for mental perhaps more than 

 for physical characteristics. . . . 



Dr. Jordan certainly fares far afield in 

 offering two opinions — (1) the transmission 

 of an acquired character, (2) that a negro is 



a negro more for his mental than his physical 

 characters, against all of the verifiable facts 

 and experiments now available. 



Although the peculiar fact of negro pig- 

 mentation and its origin can not be experi- 

 mentally tested, the experiment of increasing 

 and decreasing pigmentation by segregation 

 is open to all of us. The work so volumin- 

 ously before us on rats, mice, g-uinea-pigs, 

 cattle, poultry and other animals are one hun- 

 dred per cent, against Dr. Jordan's unfounded 

 speculation of pigmentation (in the negro or 

 in a blue mouse) as an instance of the ac- 

 quired character afterwards inherited. Segre- 

 gation in the dark African jungles has all 

 the experimental proof in its favor. 



That the negro is specifically a negro " for 

 mental perhaps more than for physical char- 

 acteristics " is another opinion not supported 

 by the verifiable facts. The kinky hair, thick 

 lips, pigmentation, extensive genitalia and 

 prepuce, nasal formation, weight of skull, 

 length and thickness of bones, and the other 

 physical peculiarities of the African are, to 

 put it mildly, as much the biometrician's, the 

 anthropologist's as the layman's method of 

 diagnosing the negro from another race. I 

 should like to learn of the mental differences. 



It seems to me unnecessary to discuss Dr. 

 Jordan's opinion that the Italians, Spanish 

 and Anglo-Saxon brunettes "may owe their 

 pigmentation to negroid ancestry." 



Leonard Keene Hirshberg 



Johns Hopkins TJniveesity 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Theoretische Astronomie. Von W. Klinker- 



FUES. Dritte verbesserte und vermehrte 



Ausgabe, bearbeitet von Professor Dr. H. 



BuCHHOLZ. XXXVIII., 1067 u. 12 S. 4°. 



Mit 67 Abbild. In stark. Leinenband 50 M. 



Verlag von Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn in 



Braunschweig. 



The first edition of Klinkerfues'a "Theo- 

 retische Astronomie " appeared in the year 

 1870, shortly after the publication of the 

 classical treatises of Watson and Oppolzer, 

 and in the intervening years has been an in- 

 dispensable source of information to those in- 



