Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/530

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512
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ters, whom he severally asked concerning their views of the letters and figures, without mentioning his own. The forms shown in Fig. 10 (b), (c), and (d) are the results. The brothers and sisters differ widely in age, did not learn their letters or figures from the

Fig. 14. Fig. 15.

same books, and had never, until this time, spoken of their forms to one another. The very striking similarity, together with the odd character of the forms, shows strong hereditary tendencies in this case. There are other instances of family likeness in number forms. It is not, however, invariable. Figs. 2, 12, 14, 15, and 16 are forms from members of one family. There are some similarities, but they are not striking.

Fig. 16.

Fig. 11 shows the number form of a girl of nine years. This is a colored form, its peculiarity consisting in the fact that the numbers containing two or more figures maintain their individuality and appear in a color formed by mixing the colors of its constituent digits. Thus 13 is not white and pink but pale pink. Other colored or partly colored forms appear in Figs. 17 and 18. In the former, 5 is scarlet, while the other numbers are not seen in colors. This form, like that in Fig. 4, lies in space of three dimensions, and like that of Fig. 10 has some faint and some missing numbers. Other peculiarities of this form are best presented in the words of the seer herself: