September 19, 1890.] 



SCIENGE. 



163 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*+* Correspondents are 7-equested to be as brief as possible. Tlie writer^s name 

 is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant ivith the character 

 of the journal. 



On request, twenty copies of the number containing his communication ivill 

 be furnished free to any cou-espondent. 



Dr. A. Graham Bell's Studies on the Deat. 



CAiLiNGt a statement a mistake does not make it one. Permit 

 me to respond briefly to what are called my mistakes: — 



1. The statement (p. 85) which Dr. Bell denies, was accompa- 

 nied by reference to the authority for my quotation. It was taken 

 from the British Medical Journal of May 11, 1889, a reputable 

 English periodical, and has since been quoted in the British 

 Quarterly Review of Deaf Mute Education. My responsibility 

 ceases upon the production of such evidence. The misstatement 

 cannot, by the wildest liberty of imagination, properly be called 

 mine. 



2. The so-called mistakes in the final paragraph (p. 119) can 

 easily be detected, if they exist, for the official sources of infor- 

 mation are given. The papers presented to tlie British House of 

 Commons on deaf-mute matters contain a report from the United 

 States, dated Oct, .5, 1880 (pp. 51-55). 



In June, 1884, at a convention of oral teachers held in New 

 York City, of which Dr. Bell was permanent chairman, F, H. Wines, 

 Esq. , the special census officer in charge of statistics of this char- 

 acter, said, " There must be in the United States, I think, not less 

 than five thousand children, who are of proper age to attend 

 school, who have never seen the inside of any institution" (O^cia? 

 Report of Convention, p. 5). Several months later, at the Gal- 

 laudet Centennial in Philadelphia, Dr. Bell used the following 

 language: "In 1880, with all our magnificent Institutions, and 

 with all our beneficence, we still had fifteen thousand children of 

 school age in the country ; and in all our institutions and schools 

 put together there were only a little over five thousand, and many 

 of these were over the school age'' {Silent World, Philadelphia; 

 and Dr. BelVs Speech at Gallaudet Conference of Principals, p. 

 16). These two extracts and the " Report to the British House of 

 Commons" are sufficient evidence of the correctness of my final 

 paragraph (p. 119). 



3. I am also condemned for not giving the statement of what 

 the theory of a deaf-mute race is. It ought to be remembered 

 that the article on " Scientific Testimony," reprinted in your col- 

 umns, appeared originally in the American Annals of the Deaf. 

 The readers of that journal are perfectly familiar with what the 

 theory of a deaf-mute race is, and the statement of it there would 

 be altogether unnecessary. It was Dr. Bell himself who first sug- 

 gested the printing of this article in Science; and it is difficult to 

 understand how he can now turn upon the writer, and condemn 

 what he is himself responsible for, so far as'the wider publicity 

 of the article is concerned. 



4. But the gravamen of my ofi'ence, " the climax of my numer- 

 ous mistakes." as Dr. Bell terms it, is that I have attributed the 

 theory of a deaf-mute race to him. It would certainly be inex- 

 cusable in a teacher of the Hartford school not to know that Rev. 

 William Turner first suggested this theory, if such a teacher could 

 be found. Does the doctor really believe that it is the culmina- 

 tion of my errors that I did not charge him with borrowing this 

 theory? I have nowhere said he originated it. According to this 

 rule, we must never speak of the Darwinian theory, for it is well 

 known that it had already been suggested long before it bad been 

 elaborated by Darwin. Theories take the names of their most illus- 

 trious expounder.-:, it vvas in this sense, without the least sus- 

 picion of an invidious suggestion, that I, in common with the 

 press and the colloquial habit of the country, spoke of Professor 

 Bell's theory of a deaf-mute race. I confess to a considerable de- 

 gree of mortification in finding myself obliged to deal with mat- 

 ters of so trivial a character as the charges this letter contains; 

 but, when the head and front of my offending turns upon so 

 minute a jDoint as the proper designation of a theory wliich has 

 been presented to the public by Professor Bell, I may well feel 

 some degree of satisfaction with the real question of which these 

 side issues are mere cobveebs. I hope to be able in a few weeks 



to present a few thoughts on hereditary deafness; but I shall not 

 again reply to charges of misstatements, unless I have been guilty 

 of some inadvertence which does injustice. 



Rev. W. G. Jenkins. 



Hartford, Conn., Sept. 8. 



I HAVE read the review of the "Facts and Opinions" respecting 

 the deaf, published by Mr. A. Graham Bell, which appeared in 

 your issue of Aitg. 15. The reviewer, Mr. W. G. Jenkins of 

 Hartford, quotes my opinion as to the cause o£ deafness, which is 

 characteristic of many batrachians, which was, that it is due to 

 disuse which follows the absence of sound in the subterranean and 

 subaquatic region which they inhabit. The reviewer then goes 

 on to point out that there is no analogy between such animals 

 and the deaf-mutes among mankind, who live, like their fellow- 

 men, in the midst of sounds. 



Mr. Jenkins has overlooked the questions put by Mr. Bell, and 

 hence has missed the significance of the answer, in my case at 

 least. The first question was whether it was thought probable that 

 a race of human deaf-mutes could be established. My reply was 

 that I thought that such a race could be established. My reasons 

 were, first, the analogy of the batrachians and other Vertebrata; 

 and. second, the probability that by continuous intermarriage 

 such a peculiarity could become established as congenital. I did 

 not ofller any opinion as to how the deafness might originate in 

 mankind; for on this subject I had, and have now, no sufficient 

 information. As to the question of the transmittal of such a 

 character, your readers ai'e referred to my essay on "Inheritance 

 in Evolution," which appeared in the American Naturalist ior De- 

 cember, 1889. E. D. Cope. 



Philadelphia, Sept. 5. 



The " Barking Sands " of the Hawaiian Islands. 



About a year ago Nature printed my letter from Cairo, giving a 

 condensed account of an examination of the Mountain of the Bell 

 (Jebel Nagous) on the Gulf of Suez, and of the acoustic phenome- 

 non from which it is named. In continuation of my researches 

 on sonorous sand, which are conducted jointly with Dr. Alexis 

 A. Julien of New York, I have now visited the so called "barking 

 sands'' on the island of Kauai. These are mentioned in the works 

 of several travellers (Bates, Frink, Bird, Nordhoff, and others), 

 and have a world-wide fame as a natural curiosity; but the 

 printed accounts are rather meagre in details, and show their au- 

 thors to have been unacquainted with similar phenomena else- 

 where. 



On the south coast of Kauai, in the district of Mana, sand-dimes 

 attaining a height of over one hundred feet extend for a mile or 

 more nearly parallel to the sea, and cover hundreds of acres with 

 the water worn and wind-blown fragments of shells and coral. 

 The dunes are terminated on the west by bold cliffs {Pali) whose 

 base is washed by the sea: at the east end the range terminates- 

 in a dune more symmetrical in shape than the majority, having 

 on the land side the appearance of a broadened truncated cone. 

 The sands on the top and on the landward slope of this dune (being 

 about 100 yards from the sea) possess remarkable acoustic proper- 

 ties, likened to the bark of a dog. The dune has a maximum 

 height of 108 feet, but the slope of sonorous sand is only 60 feet 

 above the level field on which it is encroaching. At its steepest 

 part, the angle being quite uniformly 31°, the sand has a notable 

 mobility when perfectly dry; and on disturbing its equilibrium it 

 rolls in wavelets down the incline, emitting at the same time a 

 deep bass note of a tremulous character. My companion thought 

 the sound resembled the hum of a buzz-saw in a planing-mill. A 

 vibration is sometimes perceived in the hands or feet of the per- 

 son moving the sand. The magnitude of the sound is dependent 

 upon the quantity of sand moved, and probably to a certain ex- 

 tent upon the temperature. The dryer the sand, the greater the 

 amount possessing mobility, and the louder the sound. At the 

 time of my visit the sand was dry to the depth of four or five 

 inches. Its temperature three inches beneath the surface vvas 87* 

 F., that of the air being 83° in the shade (4.30 p.m.). " 



