Posthumous Works of Charles Otis Whitman, Professor of Zoy in the University of Chicago, 1892-1910, Vol. 2: Director of Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, 1888-1908 (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Reseña del editor

Excerpt from Posthumous Works of Charles Otis Whitman, Professor of Zoy in the University of Chicago, 1892-1910, Vol. 2: Director of Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, 1888-1908

Seven manuscripts bearing on the subject of this volume, nearly 2,000 pages of breeding record, and about 200 illustrations with accompanying legends comprised the material from which the present volume is assembled.

The first of these manuscripts was written in 1897. It treats of inheritance as limited by sex, and is placed in Chapter XII. Two lectures in 1898 supplied the materials for Chapter XVI and for a fragment of Chapter XI. The third manuscript dates from about 1904, and was slightly revised later. It is the most general and comprehensive treatment of the series and is here made to serve as an introductory chapter. Some tabulations or lists which accompanied this paper have, however, been separated from it and expanded to include studies made after 1904. These expansions treat partly of some crosses made earlier than 1904 but not adequately summarized at that time, and partly of crosses made later by the author and summarized wholly by the editor. These completed summaries now appear as Chapter II. The fourth manuscript, "On the Divisibility of Characters," was written in 1906 and is the basis of Chapter XVII. The fifth, dated 1907 and entitled "Heredity," touches the broader aspects of development and becomes the first section of the concluding statement of Chapter XIV. To this statement have been added three or four pages on "Mendelian Heredity" from a lecture in 1908 and some other materials from the papers next to be mentioned, which have also found their natural place in the same chapter.

A seventh and very incomplete manuscript (R 16, WW 1), consisting largely of short summaries and conclusions drawn chiefly from later studies, was written in 1909 and 1910. The conclusions found here, though disconnectedly set down in about 30 small pages, represent Professor Whitman's most mature and final judgment in regard to his work with the dominance of sex and color, with its control, and with the dependence of this result upon relative "fertility" and "strength" of the germ-cells.

The major task of the editor has been the summarizing of the data on which these conclusions from the work of the author's later years were based and their tabulation and presentation. In most cases this has meant the tabulation of data concerning breeding, quotation from the specific record where possible, and from the notes of the seventh manuscript till this was fully presented; and, finally, undertaking such analysis and discussion as seems absolutely necessary to render it available to students. But such analysis and discussion by the editor have perhaps not been unduly pressed; indeed, the editor believes that, although he has worked much, the reader has yet something to do to avail himself of all that lies in the volume. The results of this effort to present fully these materials may be found chiefly in Chapters II to XIV inclusive. The elaborateness of the detailed tabulations in those chapters - unusual as this method of presentation is - will be found quite necessary because of the nature of the problems treated. For this reason, too, it was deemed advantageous greatly to amplify from the numerous later records the relatively few summaries made by the author and to add many unsummarized earlier records as well.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com