March 6, 1885.] 



SCIENCE 



189 



contempt. The tail of a whale is no wise more com- 

 plicated structurally, nor a whit more interesting mor- 

 phologically, than the sting of a bee; but it occupies 

 an infinitely greater space, and is more obvious both 

 to the gaze of the curious and the study of the com- 

 petent, — a fact which the management of a popular 

 museum cannot afford to ignore. 



The national museum has very properly developed 

 most in those departments, like ichthyology, geology, 

 and ethnology, which receive, independently, govern- 

 ment aid, and thus furnish both workers and mate- 

 rial. If some of the other departments have so far 

 been left without material support, those persons feel 

 least like complaining who are familiar with the 

 ultimate intentions of the director and his efficient 

 assistant, and with the vast amount of work accom- 

 plished in organization and installation since the 

 building was completed. C. Y. Kiley, 



Hon. curator of insects, U.S.N.M. 



Washington, D.C., Feb. 12. 



Plastic snow. 



A phenomenon new to me was observed at the 

 close of the north-east storm this noon, which showed 

 the cohesive force in wet snow. The railing to my 

 porch has a top sloping about ten degrees each way. 

 My attention was directed to a festoon of snow six- 

 teen inches and a half between ends, and seven 

 inches deep, formed from a snow-ribbon. As it left 

 the railing, it was gradually twisted, so that the bot- 

 tom of the loop was in a position the exact reverse 

 of what it had held when upon the rail. The twist- 



ing-force had extended for a number of inches in 

 each direction in the part that remained upon the 

 rail. This loop hung free, and moved over an arc of 

 five or six degrees when the wind struck it. It was 

 of short duration, as the water from the rail melted 

 the centre; and the ends, as they swung back, were 

 broken off about four inches from the rail, and 

 showed a spiral twist like that in a twist-drill. On 

 the next panel was the end of a former loop; and 

 this hung free, and measured nearly ten inches in 

 length. Edward H. Williams, Jun. 



Bethlehem, Penn., Feb. 16. 



Hereditary malformation. 



Mr. E. Brabrook writes to the society of anthro- 

 pology in Paris an account of hereditary hypospadias, 

 first reported to the Lancet by Dr. Lingard. The 

 order of inheritance is as follows: first generation, 

 one affected; second, one; third, one, whose widow 

 afterwards married a man unaffected. This woman 

 had seven sons — three by her first husband, and four 

 by her second husband — all affected. I will divide 

 these seven sons into the first and second set. Of 

 the first three, one died childless: the other two had 

 six sons, all affected. Of the second set were born 

 eleven sons, —four affected, and seven unaffected. 



Three sons are reported of the first set in the next or 

 sixth generation, two of whom are affected ; while, of 

 three sons belonging to the second set in the same 

 generation, none are affected. Aside from the great 

 value of such a compact series of well-authenticated 

 facts, a very interesting question, often mooted among 

 stock-breeders, of the permanence in the effects of first 

 impregnations, receives here a partial answer. The 

 running-out of this influence in a few generations 

 should also be carefully studied. I do not speak of 

 the transmission of hereditary traits of the male 

 through the mother, because Dr. Lingard does not 

 seem to have looked among the female descendants 

 for co-ordinated malformations. Otis T. Mason. 



The Georgia wonder-girl and her lessons. 



I read with no little interest the article with this 

 title which appeared in this journal on Feb. 6. 



I was privileged to make a private examination of 

 Miss Lulu Hurst, the person referred to in the article, 

 on several occasions, in the presence of her parents, 

 and usually of her business-manager. On one occa- 

 sion I was permitted to make a careful examination 

 of the subject's physical development, and take notes 

 upon her normal temperature, heart-beat, and respi- 

 ration. I found her to be a healthy, intelligent 

 country-girl, plump rather than muscular, presenting 

 nothing very unusual in her constitution; and I cer- 

 tainly did not note the fact that I might be shaking 

 hands with a 'giant.' The muscles of her arm and 

 fore-arm were not unusually developed; nor did they 

 stand out prominently, as they do in muscular sub- 

 jects of either sex. She is above the average stature 

 for women, but does not strike one as being either 

 exceedingly active in movement or overpowerful in 

 frame; as to the former, rather the reverse, I think. 



Of the experiment with the staff, I shall simply 

 state that in my case, on two occasions, the staff 

 gyrated rapidly about its long axis, obliging me to 

 quit my hold. This was observed by other persons 

 present during the experiment. In the test with the 

 hat, Miss Lulu stands before you with her hands ex- 

 tended horizontally, palms up, with the little fingers 

 and sides touching each other. On the surface thus 

 presented we place our hat, with the outer aspect of 

 the crown resting on the two palms. The experi- 

 menter is then invited to lift the hat off. When I 

 tried this experiment, the hat was only removed after 

 considerable force was exerted, and then came away 

 with a crackling noise, as if charged with electricity. 

 That Professor Newcomb's explanation would not 

 account for the result here, I would say that I knelt 

 in such a position that my eyes were but a short dis- 

 tance away; and my line of vision was in the same 

 plane with the opposed palmar surfaces and the 

 crown of the hat. This latter was of very light 

 Manila straw, with the outer periphery of the crown 

 rounded. Now, as the form of this surface was a 

 broad ellipse, with a major axis of perhaps seven 

 inches, and a minor axis of six, quite smooth, it 

 would be simply an impossible feat for Miss Lulu 

 to seize it when the distance between the inner mar- 

 gins of the opposite thenar eminences in a right line 

 is less than six inches. 



Permit me now to present a test which Professor 

 Newcomb did not witness. It consisted in standing 

 upright, with one foot in advance of the other to act 

 as a brace, and holding in the hands with a firm grasp 

 an ordinary chair. This is to be done by seizing it 

 at the rear uprights, about where the back joins the 

 bottom ; the former being towards you, and parallel 

 with your anterior chest-wall, against which you 



