I 



PhoUnir((pliic Itcxvnrvhex (iiu/ Pord'iiitniT IlOO 



I 



onliiiuiy iwuliii^ diKtimco as 12 inches, ii row of five dot« ejich aJT^tJi of an 



inch in cHanieter arranged on the j)age of a book would \h> like an almost 



invisii)le tine and continuous line. A row of 300 dotH to the inch will look 



[at a toot like a continuous line, hut far fewer dots are interpreted l>y the 



imagination as a line. The ordinary cyclostyle works hy dotting and lias aU«it 



'i]40 dots to the inch; the usual half-tone engraving is produced also hy dot«, 



[but without a lens the illustratidn apjtears continuous in it,s tones and shading. 



Galton foxMid that with only 50 dots to the inch he could reproduce a profile 



which many jjersons to whom it was .shown failed to discriminate from an 



ordinary woodcut. '250 to 830 points gave exceedingly well the profile of a 



Greek girl co()ied from a geni'. 



Taking his points at e(|Ual (listances Cialton I'ipuikI lliai the tlirection Irom 

 one point to the ne.xt could he in most csxses adequately given hy the points 

 of the compa.ss, the top of the paper lieing treated as north. He takes the 

 letter (( to I'epresent north, h for north-north-e;ist, c for north-east and soon 

 in order up to y>. This presumed, it is possible to repre.sent any profile by a 

 fornnihi. Letters beyond a to j> give points of reference or rnarK by a sort 

 of bracket points not to Ih* drawn in as when we pa.ss from ])row to eye. For 

 convenience Gallon breaks up his directional letters into words of five letters 

 each. Thus the profile of the Greek girl involved about 400 letters or 80 

 words, and might have been sent by tel«'gram. In 1898 it would have cost 

 about XH to cable it across the Atlantic. (Jalton illustrated by examples the 

 accuracy with which such portraits, maps or plans could be reproduced. In 

 a j)ostscri{)t added to the printed lecture he gives a coordinate system which 

 allows of somewhat greater exactness, but it requires two numljers to each 

 direction; at the same time it allows variety in the length of the steps. 



The whole paper is very characteristic of its author; it leads us from 



{)sychological theory to a practical end, the sending of portraits by telegraph ; 

 mt beneath the whole we find (ialton really working at the idea of inherited 

 reseml)]ance as mesisured by the degree of likeness in the formulae for the 

 profiles of relatives. 



We have noted in our first volume that the Galton family was portrayeil 

 in a considerable number of very characteristic silhouettes. When Francis 

 Galton turned to the problems of quantitatively measuiing resemblance and 

 of indexing portraits, he was compelled by the nature of his subject to deal 

 chiefiy with profiles, and from this standpoint he recognised the great value 

 of the silhouette. No doubt thinking of his own family portraits, he addressed 

 two letters to the editor of I'/tc I'hotoyrcqjfiic Xt'ivs\ Silhouettes, he tells 

 the readers of that journal, 



"weiv vt-ry fiiiuiliar to those who livtnl in the prepliotogniphic period. They weix' quickly cut 

 out of paper by a, cleft hand witii a small keen pair of scissors, ami at lea-st one of the luauy 

 operators in this way ranked as an artist capable of making excellent likenesses'. The pajter 



' This profile, about 12 inche.s high, was in the Gallonxana, and pix)bably still is, but could 

 not be found recently for repnxluotion here. 

 - .luly 15th and July 22nd, 1S87. 



' No doul)t Edouai-d, who did the Galton and Darwin faiuilies. fc>ee our Vol. i. Plates IV, 

 I XVII, and XXXIV. 



