178 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ume of charts under the title " Meteorographica." He was a member 

 of the Meteorological Committee (later Meteorological Council) formed 

 in 1868 for the purpose of giving storm warning to seaports, for ob- 

 taining data for marine charts, and for maintaining a few observa- 

 tories with self-recording instruments. His service during the thirty 

 years that he was connected with the work of the committee and council 

 may be best expressed in the words of Sir Richard Strachey, in a letter 

 written to Mr. Galton on his retirement from the council in 1901. 

 Only a paragraph can be given. 



It is no exaggeration to say that almost every room in the office and all its 

 records give unmistakable evidence of the active share you have always taken in 

 the direction of the operations of the office. The council feel that the same high 

 order of intelligence and inventive faculty has characterized your scientific work 

 in meteorology that has been so conspicuous in many other directions, and has 

 long become known and appreciated in all centers of intellectual activity. 



Composite photography may be mentioned here, although in ex- 

 plaining its origin we must refer to matters more properly belonging 

 to a subsequent section. 



The blending of physiognomies by allowing each to make upon the 

 sensitive plate but a fraction of the impression required for a clear 

 picture may in the hands of some be only a harmless amusement for 

 the scientific amateur, but the mother of this invention was the neces- 

 sity for the securing of greater precision in the determination of fam- 

 ily, class or racial types. Composite photography is the mechanico- 

 graphical method by which its inventor attempted to solve the prob- 

 lem. He points out that human features must show great differences, 

 since we are able to recognize a familiar face among thousands. This 

 is possible because the general expression of a face is the sum of a 

 multitude of small details which are viewed so quickly that they are 

 apparently taken in at a single glance. If any difference from a re- 

 membered face be present it immediately looms large before the eye 

 and overshadows all the many points of resemblance. It is impossible 

 to measure these infinitesimal differences between individuals and to 

 determine by statistical means what is the characteristic physiognomy 

 of a race. The selection and photographing of " typical " or " repre- 

 sentative " individuals — the course commonly adopted — is altogether 

 untrustworthy, since the judgment of the observer is itself fallaceous, 

 easily swayed by gross and exceptional features rather than by the 

 ordinary ones, so that the carefully chosen typical portrait is more apt 

 to be a caricature. 



In a composite photograph family or racial characteristics are 

 strongly impressed upon the film, while the individual idiosyncrasies 

 average out — much as they do in statistical analysis — or to use Galton's 

 own phrase, " leave but a ghost of a trace of individual peculiarities." 

 To discuss in detail the practical applications which have been made, 



