THE INHERITANCE OF FAMILY TRAITS 55 



When both parents have poor Uterary ability and come 

 from a strain devoid of it the children will, typically, haVe 

 poor literary capacity. This generalization is based on the 

 19 children, all non-Uterary, of four matings of this sort. 

 But when hterary ability appears in remoter ancestry it 

 will occur in some of the children. Thus in 23 matings of 

 this sort only 25 per cent of the children are without literary 

 capacity. * 



10. Mechanical Skill 



There can be little doubt of the inheritance of some of 

 the elements of mechanical ability. The case of John 

 Roebling and his sons, builders of the first great suspension 

 bridge over the East River, New York City, and of Charles 

 Martin, long chief engineer of that bridge, and his son, 

 Kingsley Martin, for some years chief engineer of the bridges 

 of New York City, are examples familiar to modern Amer- 

 icans. Not less striking is the family of boat designers whose 

 pedigree is shown in Fig. 24. Five of the seven sons of the 

 illustrious head of the family were inventors and boat 

 designers, and high technical ability has appeared also in 

 the third generation. 



The Pomeroys are another American family that illus- 

 trates the inheritance of mechanical skill. The first of the 

 family in America was Eltweed Pomeroy at Dorchester 

 in 1630 and later at Windsor, Connecticut. He was by 

 trade a blacksmith, which in those days comprehended prac- 

 tically all mechanical trades. His sons and grandsons, 

 with few exceptions, followed this trade. ''In the settle- 

 ment of new towns in Massachusetts and Connecticut the 

 Pomeroys were welcome artisans. Large grants of land 

 were awarded to them to induce them to settle and carry 

 on their business." ''The peculiar faculty of the Pomeroys 

 is not the result of training aud hardly of perceptible volun- 



