THE THIRTIETH CENTURY MAN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 201, 23 August 1905, Page 9

THE THIRTIETH CENTURY MAN.

SCIENCE AND LORD ROSEBERY'S SPECULATIONS.

In the course of a recent speech Lord I Rosebery indulged in sonic humorous j speculations regarding the man of the thirtieth century. 'What will he be 1 like? What hat will he wear? Science cannot answer for the fashi ions, hut it is not improbable that the ' thirtieth century descendant of you who ' are reading these lines will, in features lat any rate, be strongly reminiscent of what you are now. ju'?t as many men j and women to-day are like their remote ancestors. ) All over the world science is busily j examining this riddle of the "ihrow- ! back. : ' At the Carnegie Station for Ex- ; perimcntal Evolution at Long Island . such work is being methodically conducted, and it is not unlikely that in . the result Lord Rosebery':* speculations will receive definite answer. i On first glance at its interior the laI boratorv building might be mistaken for a zoological supply shop, inasmuch as , the greater part of it is divided up into b-jpeding-rooms for tho propagation of ! many kinds of animals. • One room is devoted to canaries, and is made melodious by the singing of hundred? of these birds, some of which are in syiall cages. while a few | dozens are shut up together in a spa- ; cious aviary. Another room contains a, • small but complete fish hatchery, with tanks for the study of shrimps, crabs. : and lobster-. A separate department is assigned to rabbits, guinea-pigs, mice; another is given up to insects of numcr- ! ou, species which are being bred.

Arguing from the above analogy, which represents pictorially a real family, it is probable that the 30th century descendant of the man who sees this picture will exhibit much the same facial characteristics. The last man. it will be seen, is a "throw-back'" to his ancestor. Observe the noses of the three intermediate figures, which in all probability will be produced-in succeeding generations.

The main purpose to which this remarkable outfit is devoted is the study of the problems hinted at in Lord Piosebery's speech. It is merely as a scientific problem that the subject is being investigated, but the results obtained will be of practical usefulness in the breeding of horses, dogs, cattle and Wither kinds of DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. Expectation of inheritance, in the matter of traits, follows, according to the famous Gallon, a simple rule of arithmetic. Of the whole heritage of the offspring, the two parents contribute one-half. Thus you yourself—for the same principle applies to human beings—received half of your physical, mental, and moral make-up from your father and mother. From your ""four grandparents you acquired an additional one-fourth: from your sixteen great-great-grandparents you got an eighth, and the fractional balance was furnished by your more remote ancestors. j Of course, this rule works out only in a rough sort of way. Being merely a theory of averages, it docs not apply absolutely to anj- individual, and it takes no account of "prepotencies" —■• that is to say. of the power of certain individuals, as yet unexplained, to impress their mm traits with exceptional conspkuousne s i ;;on THEIR OFFSPRING. j The experts of the Carnegie Insfitution propose to ascertain. by breeding many kinds of animals and plants through a long scries of generations, hew far this "law"' of Gilton's may be accepted as correct. They want to find out aLo it iv Nature new species are originated—as many naturali-ts now believe—by unexpected and more or le-s accidental jumps. Such jumps occur, apparently, through ome change, as yet mysterious, iv the substance of the germ-cell from which the creature, animal or vegetable, springs. A.white deer, or a kitten with an extra toe, is an example in point. Not long ago a scientist of higli reputation named De Tries succeeded in "inventing."' if the phrase be permissible, seven entirely new kinds

of primroses by such ''-mutations,'' as he calls them. Knowledge on the subject is as yet in its early infancy. If. on the one hand, there is still an immense deal to be j learned about it. the possibilities of future information are. on tbe other hand,! certain to be fully utilised. j There is assuredly no branch of invest igatinn that claims a more intense interest on t.he part of thoughtful persons, and if. in the course of rime, we arrive at an exact acquaintance with the principles on which Nature's operations in the propagation and modification of specie.- are based, it will be of incalculable value fo us, inasmuch as we shall be enabled thereby to procure and perpetuate in domestic animals thosp traits which render them most valuable to mankind. " bile, in a certain sense, it is true that the beginnings of modern sciences were made in the ecclesiastical establishments of mediaeval Europe, it is nor<2 tho less surprising to find that the most modern and best-received doctrine in regard to evolution is credited to AN" ACSTRIAV MONK. i This monk, whose name was Mendel, • chanced to be of an investigative turn j of mind, and, for lack of a more exciting • occupation, he turned his attention to ; the growing of sweet peas. At that' period, about 1565. the method of cms- j sing varieties by trans-erring the pollen of one blossom to the pistils of another was already well understood, and he utilised it in an elaborate series ol experiments. As a result of these experiments he formulated what is known to-day as ''Mendel's Law'"—a principle • of evolution which the experts of the I Carnegie experimental station are investigating with ail their might. The most notable feature of "Mendel's Law" is the tendency of certain inherited traits to put themselves forward conspicuously. You "had a. grandfather, let us say, whose nose had a peculiar hook. That hook appeared in your fathers

j nose, aud is reproduced in your own. It is regarded as a family curiosity. To an up-to-date naturalist, however, it is i what he would call a "dominant trait" —in other words, a physical character- , istie which persists from generation to 1 generation. Nobody to-day knows the why or wherefore of the dominant trait. But marry a white mouse with a grey mous»?. .and all of the offspring, without exception, will be grey, ('rev, in this instance, is the dominant trait. On the other hand, if the grey offspring be crossed, some of their progeny will he grry and some white. Breed the grey ; progeny of the third generation to- j gether, and all of their young will be ! grey: do tin? same with the white ones, ■ and you will get white, mice. : | You see. while in the mice of the sec- I ond generation grey is a dominant trait,! (hey retain 3 dormant tendency to whit". • which appears in their offspring. It. frequently happens, however, that an in-j dividual mouse is not like either of its j j parents, but resembles a grandparent or other ancestor more or less remote. This is what the breeders call A CASE OF "THROW-BACK - ' reverting to a previous generation. Often it occurs that a child look, j nftK'h more like, it.s grandfather than; like its own father, or the similarity of ! type may gr* back much further. Did you mother have brown eyes and ! your father blue ones* If so. it is al-1 most a certainty that your own eyes ar. | either blue or brown—not half-way be- j tween. It is an illustration of the ten- I dency of one trait to be dominant at the expense of another. Nobody knows the iKU-un why. but it is certainly a fact. Experiments with human beings for obvious reasons, are difficult, where proh- j bins of this kind are concerned, but tb."Te are always plenty of guinea-pigs, j and. s,> f* r as matters of this sort go. i what i-. true of a guinea-pig seems to be j true of a boy or girl. Furthermore, a j guinea-pig becomes. j n the ordinary course of evtns.a great-great-grandfather j in a twelvemonth, and the study of vari-1 at inn through a series of generations of j his offspring is thus made exceedingly

light upon the "problem of heredity. Btf as yet no monster has appeared for th< purpose of engendering quarrels amonj evolutionists of rival schools. Wnat an immense deal there is to bf sure in this problem of heredity, towarc the solution of which science, and espe cially the Carnegie Institution, is mak ing such slow and painful steps. Why.are we till or short? What v the reason for that peculiar nose whiel ! runs in the family .-'-neration after gene • ration? I* an inherited, tendency aceoun i table for A.'s talent for drawing anc | painting? These apparently arc "domi nant'' traits according to the law ol Mendel. Tbe rule, of course, -applies to moral and mental, as \v.?ll as physical, attri ; hutes. Hence one is able to account foi J the '"bad egg'—what > delightfully ex- ; pressive term that is!—who appears oe- ! ra.siona.ly in a respectable and houourec i family. Ho is nothing m<jre or Jess than j a ''throw-back to an irresponsible anc i good-for-nothing ancestor.

It has been said that knowledge ou this subject is in its infancy. lor this very reason, if for no other, the experi- j intuits now commencing possess an ex- ' traordinary interest. there is no tell- j ing what wonderful discoveries may be; made at th.-? Carnegie sta.tu.rn. They I might tind a means of influencing the j sex in offspring —a possibility which | does not seem >o remote w hen it. is ! considered that the tendency to pro- j dtiee male or female progeny in ma joritv ' undeniably runs in families, human or guinea-pig. This tendency seems to be a ; heritable trait, like any other, and it is i only r"_.-<iuiil(!e to -upposc that a marriage between a woman and a man whose families } rd< _ been exceptionally ■ affluent of boys would be likely to re-i suit in a high percentage of male births. ■ Ihe methods of brer-ding animals adopted at the experimental station a*-<« not in themselves especially remarkable. There are some hundreds of species of i insects, each kind being kept by itself j in a glass jar. or a box covered with : glass. anc j provided with its food plant or other food material. The iLhes. of course, will be hatched, generation after ; generation, from egg l -. As for the can-: aries and other small bird ß , lettuce and I tomatoes are kept growing in pots for j them to feed unon. making quite a nretty show of truck-gardening in miniature. The fowl-house, in which chickens and | pigeons fraternise, is in horizontal see-1 tion like a cart-wheel, and the sheep and j goats are so tame that they have to be! excluded from the laboratory by main I force. Some of tbe most important and valuable work with insects is being done by Professor C. E. Crampton, who has car-1 r_?d his experiments with moths to the j point of bizarre, evolving what might be called artificial lepidoptera by ingenious processes of his ovrn invention. Professor Orainpton's hope was that some of them might be persuaded to mate and lay eggs, which on being hatched would shed important