THE INHERITANCE OF FAMILY TRAITS 57 



with him if he were not always right." There was also 

 Elisha M. Pomeroy of Wallingford a tinner by trade. He 

 invented the razor strop and profited much by its success. 

 [C. H. S. Davis, 1870, History of WalUngford.] In the 

 sixth generation we find Benjamin Pomeroy a successful 

 lawyer entrusted with important public offices. '^But he 

 was conscious of powers for which his law practice gave 

 him no scope. He had a taste for mechanical execution, 

 and as a pastime between his professional duties under- 

 took the construction of difficult public works — the more 

 difficult the better he Uked them. The chief of the United 

 States Topographical Engineers was a friend of Mr. Pom- 

 eroy and repeatedly consulted him in emergencies wherein 

 his extraordinary capacity was made useful to the govern- 

 ment. By him were constructed on the Atlantic coast 

 beacons and various structures in circumstances that had 

 baffled previous attempts." The value to this country of 

 the mechanical trait in this one germ plasm can hardly be 

 estimated. Especially is it to be noted that, despite con- 

 stant out-marriages, it goes its course unreduced and un- 

 modified through the generations. 



The Fairbanks family of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, illus- 

 trates the inheritance of inventiveness combined with execu- 

 tive abiUty, specialized in the iron trade. The inventor 

 of the '' platform scales" belonged to a family not merely 

 of iron workers but to one with imagination such as made 

 other members literary men (Fig. 25). 



The Family Records give rather definite information as 

 to the method of inheritance of mechanical skill. 



When both parents have good or exceptional mechanical 

 skill all of their children will have it also. 



Out of 413 children of such matings (including both sexes) all but 7 

 show some mechanical abiUty, and 118 of them ability of an exceptional 

 order. Indeed, most persons of exceptional skill come from this mating. 



