Febrdaey 6, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



223 



"Dreams as Eetrostructive Interpretations," by 

 W. B. Smith. 



"The Master Motive in a Theory of Knowl- 

 edge," by John G. Harrison. 



"Eational Psychotherapy," by Eobert S. Car- 

 roll. 



' ' Concluding from Negatives, ' ' by W. B. Smith. 



"Concerning the Psychological Origin of Crea- 

 tion Stories," by W. T. Shepherd. (By title.) 



"A Test for Adolescents," by Eleanor D. 

 Keller. 



' ' Avocational Education, " by W. C. Euediger. 



"The Correlation of Abilities in High School 

 Girls," by E. F. Buchner. 



' ' Experiments with Free Association Method, ' ' 

 by E. M. Ogden. W. C. Euediger, 



Secretary 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



A SPECIAL meeting of the Anthropological So- 

 ciety of Washington was held at 4:30 P.M., De- 

 cember 9, 1913, in Eoom 43 of the new museum 

 building, the president, Mr. Stetson in the chair. 

 About fifty persons were present. 



Dr. Charles B. Davenport, of the Carnegie Insti- 

 tution, director of the laboratory at Cold Spring 

 Harbor, Long Island, addressed the society on 

 "Man from the Standpoint of Modern Genetics." 

 He said that the problem of the origin of species 

 has now become largely reduced to the problem of 

 the origin and survival of the characters of the 

 species. Since groups differentiated by a single he- 

 reditary character are called biotypes, the question 

 of the origin of species is now that of the origin of 

 biotypes. Man is a congeries of biotypes. If these 

 do not exist as distinct elementary species it is 

 )>ecause of the tremendous hybridization that is 

 taking place between biotypes. These biotypes 

 are most nearly realized in islands, peninsulas and 

 out-of-the-way places. The most distinct of the 

 human races exist to-day in such places as Aus- 

 tralia and Ceylon, the Japan Islands (Ainos), 

 Gape Horn and inside of the Arctic circle within 

 the old and new world. But in small islands of 

 the coast, where people have been long settled and 

 little disturbed, they tend to approach a pure race 

 or biotype. 



Under the shelter of this isolation, incidentally, 

 opportunity has been afforded for an adjusted 

 race to spring up; but there is danger of deterio- 

 ration through too close interbreeding. Hybridi- 

 zation, as stated, is constantly preventing the com- 



plete development of these biotypes. This 

 hybridization has gone on with man since early 

 times so that few biotypes are now actually real- 

 ized. It is now going on faster than ever and even 

 the rare fairly pure biotypes are fast disappearing 

 from the globe. The work of the anthropologist 

 of the future must be largely with these hybrid- 

 ized biotypes; his principal study wUl be the in- 

 heritance of the various differential traits. 



The method of inheritance of some of these 

 traits has already been studied. Thus we know 

 that the brown iris is dominant over- its absence, 

 as seen in blue eyes. The skin color of the negro 

 is complex, being due to two double (or four) 

 factors; and these may work independently of 

 one another, so that we have one, two, three or 

 four pigment factors in the skin, producing the 

 typical quadroon, mulatto. Sambo and full negro 

 skin coloration. Dark brown hair is dominant 

 over blond hair; so that when both parents have 

 only blond hair the childi-eu are all blonds. Two 

 red-haired parents have only red-haired offspring. 

 But two glossy black-haired parents may carry red 

 hidden and so have red-haired children, as we so 

 often see among the Irish. Kinky or curly hair is 

 dominant over straight. Two straight-haired pa- 

 rents have, typically, only straight-haired children. 



Many "hereditary diseases" depend on a 

 ' ' diathesis, ' ' a non-resistance that is clearly in- 

 herited and if matings of like or of relations occur 

 extensively, we have the elements necessary for 

 the production of a biotype. Among such diseases 

 are Huntington 's chorea, presenile cataract and 

 night blindness. Other diseases are inherited as 

 sex-linked characters — such are color blindness 

 and the ' ' bleeding ' ' tendency. Very striking is 

 the tendency to produce a real biotype of the 

 imbecile class, because imbeciles tend to segregate 

 themselves and to intermarry. This is the reason 

 why we get such histories as the Nams of New 

 York, the Hill Folk of Massachusetts, the Pineys 

 of New Jersey and the Jukes of New York. Any 

 condition that favors consanguineous matings, or 

 matings of Ukes, favors the formation of a va- 

 riety of the human race, as Dr. Alexander Graham 

 Bell (the Francis Galton of America) long ago 

 pointed out. Thus most institutions which do not 

 provide permanent custodial care tend to promote 

 such marriages; for example, among the deaf- 

 mutes, tubercular, nervous, paupers and even 

 alcoholics and users of narcotics. On the other 

 hand, in consequence of social stratification fine 

 near-biotypes, like the Lowells of Boston, the 



