VII.]   DISCUSSION OF THE DATA OF STATURE.   III

upon a square base. Our Squadron may be divided either into 1000 ranks or into 1000 files. The ranks will form a series of 1000 identical Schemes, the files will form a series of 1000 rectangles, that are of the same breadth, but of dissimilar heights. (See Fig. 14.)

It is easy by this illustration to give a general idea, to be developed as we proceed, of the way in which any large sample, A, of a Population gives rise to a group of Kinsmen, Z, so distant as to retain no family likeness

to A, but to be statistically undistinguishable from the Population generally, as regards the distribution of their statures. In this case the samples A and Z would form

similar Schemes. I must suppose provisionally, for the purpose of easily arriving at an approximate theory, that tall, short, and mediocre Parents contribute equally to the next generation though this may not strictly be the case.'

1 Oddly enough, the shortest couple on my list have the largest family, namely, sixteen children, of whom fourteen were measured.