144 
the phenomena have been sufficiently pronounced, 
the sun is during the day encircled by a more or 
less distinct colored halo or corona. At this place 
the assumed supra-cirrus volcanic dust seems not 
to have been sufficiently dense to have developed the 
colored rings; and there was observed nothing more 
than a whitish glare extending over the sky from 20° 
to 25° from the centre of the sun. But the Rev. S. E. 
Bishop writes me from Honolulu, that this chromatic 
circle around the sun has been constantly observed 
in all of the Hawaiian Islands for several months. 
It has likewise been observed in England as a fre- 
quent accompaniment of a conspicuous manifestation 
of the upperglows of sunset and sunrise. 
It is an interesting question, whether this more or 
less distinct colored zone encircling the sun is a true 
ice-crystal halo, or a diffraction corona. Its want of 
sharp definition, and the absence of the regular suc- 
cession of prismatic tints due to refractive disper- 
sion, would seem to point to diffraction as the true 
cause of the chromatic phenomena. On the other 
hand, the large size of the colored circle, having a 
radius of from 20° to 30°, would seem to connect it 
with the well-known ice-crystal halo of about 22° 
radius. 
While I am disposed to regard this chromatic fea- 
ture of the phenomena as mainly due to the diffrac- 
tive action on light of the impalpable dust-particles 
suspended in the lofty supra-cirri regions of the at- 
mosphere, yet it is by no means improbable that ice 
may be associated with the phenomena: for it ap- 
pears from the experiments of M. Coulier, and more 
particularly from those of Mr. John Aitken, com- 
municated to the Royal society of Edinburgh, Dec. 
20, 1880 (Nature, vol. xxiii. pp. 195-197; also vol. 
Xxiii. p. 384), that the presence of dust-particles in the 
air is essential to the formation of fogs and clouds; 
that, when aqueous vapor condenses in the atmos- 
phere, it always does so on some solid nucleus; and 
that the dust-particles in the air form these nuclei. 
Now, it is evident that the presence of these attenu- 
ated dust-particles in the supra-cirri regions of the at- 
mosphere would produce condensation of the rarefied 
aqueous vapor at these lofty altitudes. But inas- 
much as this region must, even within the tropics, 
be far above the plane of perpetual congelation, the 
condensed vapor must necessarily assume the form 
of aggregations of ice around these nuclei: hence the 
diffractive coronas may be associated with imperfect- 
ly developed ice-crystal halos. JOHN LECONTE. 
Berkeley, Cal., Jan. 25, 1884. 
Inheritance of physical injuries. 
Well-authenticated instances of the inheritance of 
a physical injury are so rare, that I wish to put upon 
record one which has recently fallen under my ob- 
servation. A gentleman, when a boy about seven 
years of age, had the second toe of the right foot de- 
formed by wearing a tight boot. The first and third 
toes were crowded together, forcing the second one 
under and backwards, and causing a curvature of 
the second joint, which, in time, became permanent. 
The joint, being somewhat elevated above those of 
the other toes, received the pressure of the shoe, and 
always after was more or less troublesome in conse- 
quence. The gentleman was twice married. By his 
first wife he had six children, the second of which 
was a daughter; the rest, sons. The daughter inher- 
ited the crooked toe; but the feet of all the sons were 
normal. The deformity appeared, however, in the 
son of one of these, — the brother next younger than 
the sister, — affecting the same foot and toe as on the 
grandfather. By his second wife the gentleman had 
SCIENCE. 
(Von. ILL, No. 58. 
only one child, a son, who also inherited the pecul- 
iarity; but in this instance it was the second toe of 
the left foot, instead of the right, that was affected. 
Knowing that much doubt still exists whether the 
results of a slight physical injury, like the one I have 
described, are ever transmitted, I have taken pains to 
examine carefully all the evidence under my obser- 
vation; and I feel assured of its correctness. All 
four having the deformed toes are now living, and all 
agree upon the facts. The gentleman is positive that 
his feet were normal until he was about seven years 
old, and says he remembers very distinctly wearing 
the boots which caused the deformity. An exami- 
nation of the foot does not show any congenital 
peculiarity which might have been transmitted. The 
toe, when restored to its correct position, appeared 
normal in every way. No peculiarity of this kind 
has ever appeared in any other of the gentleman’s 
relatives. I can see no way, then, of avoiding the 
conclusion that the injury, or rather its results, have 
been transmitted to two generations. 
The case presents some features which render it 
especially interesting. The peculiarity’s appearance 
in the children of both wives seems to eliminate al- 
together the element of the mother’s influence in 
producing it. The recurrence of the variation in the 
grandchild, the father being normal, indicates how 
powerful was the tendency to perpetuate this slight 
deviation from nature’s standard. In the other cases 
which I have studied personally, if a variation did 
not appear in a child, that child’s children were free 
from it also. I should be glad to know if any one of 
your readers has observed this tendency toward re- 
verting to the ancestral type under similar cireum- 
stances. Irvine P. BISHOP. 
Perry, N.Y., Jan. 28, 1884. 
Pumice from Krakatoa. 
Capt. A. W. Newell, of the bark Amy Turner of 
Boston, has brought in some pumice which was 
washed aboard his vessel, Sept. 17, 1883, in latitude 
7° 25’ south, longitude 103° 21’ east, about a hundred 
and sixty-five miles south-west from Krakatoa, Sun- 
da Straits. It covered the sea in windrows, and was 
observed as fine ashes as far distant as thirteen hun- 
dred and fifty miles from its source. 
A piece about seven inches by five, which came to 
my notice, is of a reddish-gray color, and very much 
inflated: it carries porphyritic crystals of plagioclase 
felspar, in many cases surrounded by dark-brown 
glass, forming small black spots in the gray mass, 
which might at first sight be mistaken for augite or 
hypersthene. There is, besides, dark-green augite 
and brown hypersthene, which is strongly pleochroic, 
and resembles closely that found in the lavas from 
the volcanoes of northern California and the Cascade 
Range (Notes on the volcanoes of northern Califor- 
nia, Oregon, and Washington Territory, Amer. journ. 
sc., September, 1883). 
The percentage of silica for this pumice was found 
to be 62.53, and is almost identical with that of the 
hypersthene-bearing pumice. from Mount Shasta, 
which is 62. It is undoubtedly the pumice of a 
hypersthene andesite, and is especially interesting 
because of its similarity to rocks found on the west- 
ern coast of North America. The observations of 
Rénard on the ashes that fell in Batavia soon after 
the eruption of Krakatoa (Nature, Dec. 6, 1883) 
show the same component minerals, and have doubt- 
less been made on similar material. a 
Jos. P. IDDINGS. 
U.S. geological survey, New York, 
Jan. 30, 1884. 
