648 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1061 



Now what is the difficulty with the dyne- 

 C.G.S. system and why not inflict it on the 

 young? What is the present system, if not an 

 infliction ? 



At Blue Hill Observatory we have for some 

 time been expressing temperatures in degrees 

 absolute, pressures both atmospheric and vapor, 

 in kilobars or kilodynes, and rainfall in milli- 

 meters. Dr. Shaw, of the British Meteorolog- 

 ical Office, has since May 1, 1914, published 

 rainfall values in the daily weather report in 

 millimeters and beginning January 1, 1915, 

 the millimeter is used in the weekly and 

 monthly weather reports. In nearly every part 

 of the world except the United States the 

 millimeter has supplanted the inch as the unit 

 of rainfall measurement. Of course it will be 

 adopted here before long. As Shaw points out, 

 aside from the advantage of using a unit gen- 

 erally adopted, the unit of rainfall 0.01 inch 

 used to define a rain day has been most un- 

 satisfactory. A fall of 1 mm. (0.04 inch) is 

 a much fairer definition and as a matter of 

 fact we have had to publish this in addition to 

 the former. 



Prom the point of view of the engineer, the 

 use of the millimeter facilitates computation 

 and realization of the amount of water avail- 

 able over a given area. A millimeter of rain- 

 fall means a liter of water per square meter. 



Any one who has lived in the western part 

 of the United States and recalls the various 

 miners' inches for measuring water depth and 

 flow will realize that it would be far from 

 being an infliction to have the C.G.S. units 

 come into general use in engineering practise. 



It is not so difficult to break away from the 

 old units as may be imagined. A year's con- 

 stant use of the C.G.S. units makes one feel 

 like saying, when reading of inch measure- 

 ments, " Inch, inch ? Where have we met that 

 term before ? " 



Alexander McAdie 



Harvard TJniversitt 



a spurious case of multiple human births 

 In the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 

 for September 26, 18Y2, under the head of 

 Medical Miscellany occurs the following item : 



Eight Cliildren at a Birth. — On the 21st of Au- 

 gust, Mrs. Timothy Bradlee, of Trumbull County, 

 Ohio, gave birth to eight children — ^thiee girls and 

 five boys. They are all living, and are healthy but 

 quite small. Mr. Bradlee was married six years 

 ago to Eunice Mowery, who weighed 273 pounds on 

 the day of her marriage. She has given birth to 

 two pairs of twins, and now eight more, making 

 twelve children in six years. Mrs. Bradlee was a 

 triplet, her mother and father being twins, and her 

 grandmother the mother of five pairs of twins. 



This case has been quoted often both in gen- 

 eral texts, such as Gould and Pyle, " Anomalies 

 and Curiosities of Medicine," 1897, p. 153, and 

 in special papers, such as Wilder, American 

 Journal of Anatomy, Vol. 3, p. 393, 1904. 

 From the Prussian statistics gathered by Veit, 

 it has been shown that twins occur on the aver- 

 age once in 88 births, triplets once in 7,910 

 births and quadruplets once in 371,126 births. 

 Cases of flve or six children at a birth are well 

 authenticated, but are so rare that no statis- 

 tical statements concerning them can be made. 

 Gould and Pyle, in commenting on these in- 

 stances, declare that all cases thus far reported 

 of more than six children at a birth are to be 

 regarded as of very doubtful value. To this 

 category belongs that of Mrs. Bradlee already 

 quoted. As this instance is of comparatively 

 recent origin, it seemed possible to learn some- 

 thing of its authenticity. A letter was there- 

 fore addressed to the county clerk of Trum- 

 bull County, Ohio, inquiring about the case, 

 and through the courtesy of that official the 

 following reply was received. 



M. B. Taylee, 



CLERK OP COURTS, 

 TRUMBULL COUNTY 



Warren, Ohio, March 30, 1914 

 Mr. G. H. Parker, 

 Cambridge, Mass. 

 Dear Sir: I reply to your letter of the 24th inst., 

 in regard to the item in the medical journal, would 

 say that after inquiry I am informed that there 

 is no truth in the statement. It seems that a prac- 

 tical joker of those days went into one of the 

 newspaper offices here and set up an article which 

 he succeeded in having printed in one or two copies 

 of the paper and then took the article out and dis- 

 tributed the type in their proper places, and se- 



