other illegal descendant who was a college classmate of the author.

Ranges of facts like the foregoing, which attest the descent of great muscular vigor from ancestors to descendants for many successive generations, and throughout all the branches of these strong families, might be cited to any required extent, yet are doubtless known to every reader, so that we need not enlarge. Indeed, the fact under discussion is too palpable, and too universally observable, to require on its own account, even the space allotted to it. Our object in thus dwelling upon this and other kindred points in the early progress of the work, will be seen when we come to make the application of these principles. We wish to render our premises absolutely IMPREGNABLE, that our inferences may be both irresistible and tangible.

316. PHYSICAL DEBILITY HEREDITARY,

Stature and strength being thus hereditary, the inference is obvious that debility is equally so. This is rendered evident by facts quite as numerous and striking as those just adduced in proof of its converse. Who ever saw a strong child from parents both of whom were naturally weakly? On the contrary, look where we may, we see weak-muscled parents to have weak-muscled children, though many parents are too effeminate to have any children. Working men, whose muscles are strengthened by labor, generally have stronger children than the sedentary, whose muscles have become enfeebled by inaction. But as this point is closely allied to the transmission of health and disease-subjects to be fully discussed hereafter-we dismiss it till it can be presented with greater effect.

STRENGTH HEREDITARY.

45

SECTION V.

PHYSICAL DEFORMITIES TRANSMITTED.

317. MARKS AND EXCRESCENCES HEREDITARY. PORCUPINE MEN.

THAT same law which transmits, from generation to generation, these various physical properties, often hands down physical excrescences and even deformities; which renders our hereditary argument, already indubitable, completely demonstrated, as well as adds another forcible illustration to its already beautiful variety.

THE PORCUPINE MEN furnish a striking instance of this law. Mention is made of them in several scientific works. Their skins were covered with wartlike, bristly bunches, which "looked and rustled like the quills of hedgehogs cut off within an inch of the skin." They were shed annually. Some of the children were naturally formed, but one of them had six children, all of whom had this excrescence. It was traced in three generations in the Lambert line.

66

TWENTY-FOUR FINGERS AND TOES HEREDITARY.

The Old Testament mentions several giants who had twenty-four fingers and toes, six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot."

PLINEY describes a like peculiarity as existing in his day; doubtless transmitted from the extra fingered and toed giants of Old Testament times.

REAUMUR traced a like mal-formation in three generations. CARLYLE also observed it in four generations. The first was a female, ten of whose eleven children had the supernumeraries, while another had but one extra finger and one surplus toe. This one had four children, three of whom had one or two limbs natural, the remainder of the limbs all deformed. The fourth had the supernumerary fingers and toes and of his eight children four had them and four not. were twins-one deformed, the other natural.

Two

The HOBART family, who reside in Ontario county, New

York, have five fingers and a thumb on each hand, and six toes on each foot, though some escape. They trace this peculiarity back in the Hobart line to England. In some these extra appendages stick straight out, while in others they lie snugly ensconsed by the side of the little fingers and toes. Daughters and their children often have them.

Mr. FRENCH and Sheriff BUTTERFIELD, of Lowell, Mass., and Mr. BLANCHARD, of Groton trace these extra fingers and toes in several generations. Though in many they have been amputated at birth, yet they re-appear in their progeny, as much as in those not amputated.

ZERA COLBORN, the celebrated mathematician, had this peculiarity, as had also his mother-from whom, by the way, he evidently derived his wonderful calculating powers-and some of his children.

B. B. NEWTON, his father, and two out of three of his children, furnish still other examples of the transmission of similar extra appendages.

Many of the Newmans of Ipswich have the surplus fingers and toes. Two of their boys who attended J. Coffin's school, had them, their parents had not, but ancestors had. 318

OTHER DEFORMITIES HEREDITARY.

A professional applicant in Manchester, N. H., had but one finger, which tapered off from the place of the little finger to that of the first in one continuous enclosure, in which, however, the rudiments of the other fingers were slightly perceptible. A parent, an uncle, and two children of a sister had a similar mal-formation, though this sister had

not.

He also mentions a family in whom their third finger was generally the longest.

JONATHAN FOWLER, already cited for his great strength, is said to have had immensely large hands and feet; and several of his descendants are characterized by a like peculiarity. Even some who inherit a rather diminutive stature from other ancestors, yet retain these marks of their having descended from the bear-killing giant.

Mr.

THICK LIPS, SQUINTS, ETC.

47

of Newburyport, Mass., was born with the second joint of his little finger perfectly stiff, which his two only children inherit.

Mr. ANDERSON, a Norwegian, who resided in Lowell in 1843, had a mal-formation of his second toe on each foot, and all his brothers and sisters had one just like it.

The Rev. Mr. V. Z. on his trial for seduction at Rochester, in 1841, was shown to have a crooked finger, as had also the illegitimate of whom he was the alleged father.

THICK LIPS were introduced into the Royal family of Austria three centuries ago, and are yet plainly perceptible.

"WILLIAM B. GOUSE" said a man, in conversing on hereditary facts, "so nearly resembles his cousins whom I knew, that I mistook him for them, so near alike was their manner of laughing."

Mr. A, of Philadelphia, has a deformed heel which renders him lame, and has a son similarly afflicted.

Two GAYLEYS, brothers, have a singularity in their quackeling or squeaking of the voice, caused, probably by the deafness of their father and grandfather.

The Howe family, whose capture and Canadian captivity by the Indians at Fort Hinsdale, in the old French war, the American Preceptor so eloquently describes, have very large, wide, long, and projecting front teeth. I know nearly all the descendants, especially of the Squire Howe, who, while resting, is there mentioned as having been knocked off the Indian sacks with the handle of their tomahawks, and who carried the deep indentations thus made in his head to his grave, not one of whom but have this HowE mark. I have traced it in five generations.

A deceased mother who, as it was expressed, laughed out of her eyes, had three sisters who had a similar expression of the eye when they laughed, and three children, and several grandchildren who took after her in this respect. She inherited it from her mother. She and two of her sisters, and a son have also a spasmodic twitching of the eye, owing, doubtless, to the same cause.

Mr. COFFIN mentions a mother who had a peculiar squint, which she transmitted to her five daughters.

A Mr. TAYLOR, whose body was well formed and of good size, but whose legs were very short, at some religious anniversary in Vermont, invited Rev. Mr. Culver, of Boston, to his house, where were a son and two daughters, deformed like their father, the daughters well formed in body and fine looking when seated, but only about four feet in height, and having a very singular appearance when on foot.

WENS HEREDITARY.

Stepping into the barber's shop, No. 2 Beekman street, New York, and hearing some conversation about a wen on the neck of one of the customers, I inquired whether either of his parents had similar wens. He answered, "No, but my uncle had." I again inquired whether he was considered to resemble the uncle. He replied, "Yes, very much; and am often taken for him."315

A MR. PAYNTER, of Newtown, L. I., had several excrescences or wens on his head, formed in the scalp, and moveable. His daughter has similar ones; so had a parent; and one was just beginning to form on a grand-daughter. Her cousin has another. None appeared in childhood. All were developed at about the same age. Many similar extra formations might be cited, as having descended four, five, and more generations; and probably many more, but these must suffice as illustrations of kindred transmissions within the inspection of probably every reader.

FLAXEN LOCKS HEREDITARY.

MRS. HORTON, who, in 1842, resided about a mile east of Pawtucket, Mass., has a flaxen lock of hair growing on Benevolence, nearly white, while the rest of her hair is brown or dark. Two of her daughters, both closely resembling her, had a kindred lock. So had her father, and his mother, and also her father, and thus on for SEVEN GENERATIONS; and probably as much farther. Of her twelve uncles and aunts, eight had it, and four not, and those who had it lived longer