18 



Life and Letters of Francis Gal fan 



piece of wood and made a spokeshave and so obt{une<l shavings to make a very 

 comfbi-table bed. Further he exphiined and demonstrated experimentally 

 how a tent peg might be fixed in loose sand drift to give a resistance of 70 

 to yO lbs., etc. He was reported as having been listened to with great 

 attention. 



In 1912 one of Galton's cabinets of "Models illustrative of the Arts of 

 Camp Life," which had found its way to the South Kensington Museum, was 

 transferred to the Iloyal Geographical Society, where it still is, an object of 

 interest in the museum, if hardly of study; whether any of the othei*s have 

 survived I do not know. Probably Galton's activities to some extent helped 

 to relieve the situation in the Crimea, and doubtless had his work l)een done 

 in 1917 instead of 1856, he would have been offered an O.B.E. 



Two memoirs by Galton {)robably arose from this association with military 

 campaigning. The'tiret is that describing his invention of the Hand Heliostat, 

 an instrument for the purpose of flashing sun signals', and the second "On 

 a New Principle for the Protection of Kiflemeu'." The latter would have 

 been more effectual with the spherical bullets and the lower muzzle velocities 

 of those days than with modern trajectories; it depends on the well-known 

 fact that owing to the resistance of the air, the trajectory of a shot is not 

 symmetricjvl alxjut its highest point, and accordingly a shot fired from A to B, 

 and another from B to A, do not follow the same curve. It is accordingly 

 possible to intercept one of these and not the other by a properly placed 



screen. 



' Briluh Auociation R'port, 1858, part II, pp. 15-17; also with diagram in Thi- Kntflnitfr, 

 Oct. 15, 1858, p. 292; R. Geog. Soe. I'ror. iv, 1860, pp. U-19. 

 • United Sisrvieeo Journal, 1861, Vol. iv, pp. 393-6. 



