The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1921-04-28
Gross Examining Nature.
Sir Francis Cation was responsible for
Cations law of Inheritance, which Is


Cations law of Inheritance. which Is
as follows:
A person owes one-half of all his an
cestral influences to his two parents, or
one-quarter, 3 per cent, to each par
ent: one-quarter to his four grand
parents or one-sixteenth to each or 625
per cent: one-eighth to his eight great
grandparents, or une-sixty-fourth to
each, or 1.5625 per cent to each.
Or, stating it differently, there is one
chance in four that a child will have
his mothers eyes; one chance in 1S
that he will have, let us say, his grand
mothers eyes; and one chance in GA that
he will have his maternal grandmoth-
ers mothers eyes.
When we consider all the features
taken together the question seems com.
plicated.
Later Views are to the effect that in
he'!tancc IS far more complex than Gal
ton S law would indicate. The human
being develops from twn cells ore male
and one female, but these in turn are
each composed of IL parts, "a in ALL
ana inheritance depeids on how these
IL parts on each side combine with each
other.
tivery now and then we find a child
that has some characteristic of a grand
parent say its maternal grandmother
found in either of it's parents or in any
OF its brothers and sisters.
The mathematical probability of any
such happening II. III. Laughlin has
worked out by algebraic formula and
methods. Any man of mathematical
bent can, turn to articles by Laughlin
In the Journal of Heredity and in Gene
tics and learn how to calculate the
chance that his prospective child will in
herit the beam in the eye found IN the
material great grandparent of the girl
he saw in church last Sunday and whom
he is thinking Of taking for moonlight
ride in Aprii-object, matrimony. For
instance, if defect was in the girls
mothers mother there are 4,095 chances
in 4,096 that the girl has not vestige
of the quality in what are called her
chromosomes, and therefore, cannot
pass it on to her children, even If she
wishes.
A very interesting study along this
line is that of Davenport on the color
of the skin and of the eyes and of
kinking of the hair in crosses between
whites and blacks In Jamaica among
other classes they have what they call
pass for whites and fixed whites.'
When two individuals Of the fixed white
class marry the children are all white.
When two grades Of the pass for
whites" marry some OF their children
are dark.
Davenport says that when a grade
with less than 10 per cent negro blood
Knarr.es. a person of the same grade or
with less negro blood, this offspring are
always white. II there is more than 10
per cent. in either or both parents some
OF the children are likely to be dark.
The yellow color of mulatoes is due to
yellow pigment in the skin of blacks as
well as of grades, but covered up by the
black pigment in the skin of the for
mer. The shade of the skin of the ne
gro is light at birth, turns dark at once
on exposure to light, and gets pro-
excessively darker until the age of pu-
berty and after that becomes lighter.
The color of the eye is quality apart
from the color of the skin; likewise the
idnk of the hair. Two parents neither
of whom have kinky hair, cannot expect
to have children with kinky hair. There
are several conclusions resulting from
Davenport's study.
Laughlin, however, after giving the
various mathematical formulate for de-
termining the possibility or probability
OF q given inheritance, tells us that
there are certain factors which cannot
be fundamentally rated. Among those
are the phenomena known as mutants
or sports. There always is the posi-
ti!ity that a Samuel Rzeschewski will
ne born in q family where there is no
chess or mathematical genius, or an
Abraham Lincoln in a family of people
all ordinary and for these phenomena
tsere is no mathematical law.