358 Oh the Lmcs qf Inheritance in .Uait 



as to age of tlie mc.isurerl, or to method of measurement were not, perhaps, as 

 stringfiit a.s iiiiLfht now he coiisidcrod desirable, biit Mr Galton's data wcre aniply 

 sutticiont ti) luad liiin to his groal discoverv of the gencral Coriii of the inheritance 

 of blending charactcrs in a stablc Community. The füll significance of this 

 discovcry is haidly yet iinderstood, and one coustantly noticcs grave misinterpreta- 

 tions of Mr Galton's thoory in the works of non-statistically trained biologists. 

 The constants as determined frotn JIr Galton's stature data did not seem to me to 

 be final ; they were to some extent irregulär and were not in füll accord with the 

 more uniform eye-colour residts. It thercfore appearcd to me desirable to obtain 

 further data, not only for several physical characters and to compare the results 

 for these charactei-s with those for mental characters, but to deal with both in as 

 widc a.s possible a System of blood relationships. This was provided for in the 

 followiiig series of obsorvations : 



I. Famibj Record Series. About 189.'} I drcw up in conjunction with my 

 then colleague, W. F. R. Weldon, the directions for family measurement which are 

 dcscribed below. The measurenients were in grcat part carried out by College 

 students*, and I largely owe the success of this series to the energy and tinie 

 devoted to the collection of the data by Dr Alice Lee. In the course of four to 

 five yoars about 1 100 Cards were fillcd in. The tabling of the data on these cards 

 and the calculation of tlie Statistical constants, some 78 tables in all, are due 

 entirely to Dr Lee, and occupied her spare time for nearly two years. 



II. School Record Senes. This series was started some years later and was 

 aided by a grant from the Government Grant Committee. Its object was to 

 record the mental and physical characters in paii's of brothers, of sisters, and of 

 sistei-s and brothers in schools. About si.\ thousand children were observed and 

 measured, and provided more than 8000 pairs of brethren to illustrate in a great 

 variety of ways the intensity of coUateral reseniblaiice in mau. This series will 

 only be dealt with incidentally in the Hrst j)ait of this paper, about 150 of the 

 tables have been formed and the correlatious deduced fnmi thom, but much work 

 remains still to be done on the data for schools. 



III. Cousinship Series. A third series on the ten kinds of tii-st cousins is now 

 being started with aid froni the Government Grant Committee to complete cur 

 ([uautitative couccptions of collateral hcredity. But it will be a nuinber of years 

 before the data here desirod can be fuUy coUected and still longer before the 

 reductions can be completed. The above series form the material from which it 

 is proposed to obtain quantitative measures of the degree of resemblance between 

 blood relations in man. The present memoir deals primarily with the Family 

 Record Series. 



(ii) Nature of the Family Record Senes. 



It seems desirable to give the actual form of the instructions and schedule by 



aid of which the data were collected. 



* I mnst take this opportunity of most heartily thankint; the many helpers, who devoted much time 

 and eucigy to measuring not only single but oftcn 10 or 20 faniilica. 



