OOTODER 16, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



503 



urge it as a suitable term to adopt into gen- 

 eral usage. 



A second term or expression, to which the 

 writer desires to call attention, is the phrase 

 transmitting power, to apply to the faculty 

 which an individual organism has of trans- 

 mitting its individual peculiarities to its 

 progeny. This expression the writer has used 

 in his papers for several years past,* but is 

 not aware that it has been used in this con- 

 nection by other writers, although it may 

 have been, as it is an expression that would 

 naturally suggest itself to any one thinking 

 on this subject. Prepotency has been gen- 

 erally used in this sense, but this word has 

 three well-recognized different meanings, 

 namely, 



1. The faculty which an individual has of 

 transmitting its individual qualities to its 

 progeny without variation or reversion, mean- 

 ing in this case the strength of its hereditary 

 power. 



2. The faculty which one species has of 

 dominating another, with which it is crossed, 

 in transmitting its characters. 



3. The faculty which one kind of pollen 

 sometimes possesses in being more potent in 

 producing fecundation and offspring than an- 

 other. 



The first of these meanings is that for which 

 the writer uses the expression transmitfinfi 

 power. Professor Hays, of the University of 

 Minnesota, uses the expression (centgener) 

 power in a similar manner, but this expression 

 seems hardly applicable for use in any case 

 other than where breeding is being conducted 

 according to the centgener system used by him. 



In pedigree and grade breeding the trans- 

 mitting power of the individual is the factor 

 of prime importance that must be discovered 

 by carefully following the performance of 

 each individual in its progeny. 



Herbert J. Webber. 



Plant Breeding I.,AnoBATORY. 

 Department of AcRicriTiRE. 



A NEW SPHEROIDAL GRANITE. 



Granites and diorites, among the deep 

 seated rocks, occasionally develop spheroidal 



• Yearbook. V. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 1902, p. 360. 



or orbicular structures which are objects of 

 considerable interest to petrographers, and 

 which are exceptional and striking anomalies 

 among the results of crystallization from 

 fusion. Viewed merely as curiosities they 

 would be of only moderate importance, but 

 furnishing, as they do, an illustration of the 

 order in which rock-making minerals separate 

 from the molten magma and gather in aggre- 

 gates of regular structure, they are the more 

 worthy of attention. The best known of 

 them have been met in Europe, notably at 

 Fonni in Sardinia ; Wirvik, Finland ; Slat- 

 mossa in Sweden ; and especially from 

 Corsica, whose beautiful, spheroidal diorite 

 lias found a place in all the larger geological 

 museums of the world. In America they are, 

 if anything, less common. One granite, how- 

 ever, has been met in a boulder at Quon- 

 ochontogue Beach, near Westerly, E. I., which 

 compares favorably in perfection with those 

 of Europe. A less perfect diorite has also 

 been described from Rattlesnake Bar, El 

 Dorado Co., California. 



Last spring the writer came into jjossession 

 of specimens of an exceedingly striking 

 sphoroidal rock, which had been discovered in 

 a glacial boulder, by Mr. Horatio P. 

 Parmelee, near Charlevoix, Mich., a town 

 on Lake Michigan in the northwestern por- 

 tion of the Lower Peninsula. The boulder 

 was several feet in diameter and the largest 

 piece in the possession of the writer is about 

 fifteen inches wide by twenty inches long by 

 eight inches thick. Through the middle runs a 

 pegmatite vein five inches broad, but consist- 

 ing of the same minerals as those in the 

 spheroids. In fact, several of the spheroids 

 pass imperceptibly into the pegmatite, their 

 outer halves being normal and well-marked 

 and their inner portions passing gradually 

 into the latter. 



The distinct spheroids are two to three 

 inches across, and are usually ellipsoidal in 

 shape, although nearly perfect spheres are not 

 lacking. As is the general experience with 

 these rocks the flattened ellipsoids suggest 

 compression due either to flowing movements 

 while the rock was yet plastic or else to 

 dynamic crushes suhsequent to consolidation. 



