Statinfiral Ittcentif/atiotis 397 



Statisticjil Institute by Sir Il^ivvson W. Ilawson. Sp«aking about Hm- h.'vv 

 Aiitliropolof^'ical Society of Jupan and its memoirs, Gallon writes: 



"No (loul)t Hoiiie of till' iiioro viiluiihlo |Mip«Ts in this journal will Imrcaftcr or 



other of the chief Huropeivn liiiiguiif^eM. The curw of the Tower of lialM;!, in \M. - we 



may employ the j)lir«.se, has long pnrssed heavily upon Hcientific men in Kurope; the cont<>nipla- 

 ttun of the lulilitional burdi-n on our descemlants of having |><M.sil>ly to leani JnutineHc, Rumian 

 and Chinese as well as the Western I'luropcan hiiii;ua>(es can hardly 1k< indulged in with 

 equanimity." (p. 394.) 



Galton next turn.s to the white man in tiie tropics — a favourite topic 

 with him — and noting that it is the temjKjrature of the living rooms — 

 especially the bedrooms — which is the difficulty, he entei-s fairly fully into 

 the possibilities, mechanical and economicjil, of reirigerating apparatus for 

 use in tropical climates. This leads Galton to consider the possibility of an 

 acclimatised strain of Englishmen, and thus prompted he discusses alternate 

 inheritance: 



"Much has recently been written on the difliculty of any rare accidental variety of animal 

 or plant establishing itself, when it has unrestricted opportunity of i:  'ig with the 



parent stock. It is urged that the peculiarity would l)e haive<l in each ■• generation, 



and would very soon cerise to bo apparent in the deseendants. It seems to mo that this argument 

 is sometimes pressed t<x) far. It cannot be a general truth that characU'ristics blend, else to 

 take a conspicuous example, there would bo a growing tendency in every mixiKl population for 

 the eye-colour to become of a uniform hazel or brown gray tint, through the intermarriage of 

 persons whwe eye-coloui-s differ widely. On the contrary I have lately shown by a considerable 

 ixxly of statistics' that among the English, the projwrtions between the eye-colours, as sorted 

 under seven headings, have not changed at allduring four genei-ations. The fact is theheritagee are 

 only partially liable to Ik- blende<l together; partially they are mutually exclusive. No case of 

 inheritance probably falls under either of these oppo.sed extreme conditions, but some approxi- 

 mate to one, and others to the other. I an> not aware that the respective i-csults of these two 

 extreme conditions have yet been put forwanl (juite as forcibly as they admit of l)eing and 

 daserve to be. ...Suffice it to conclude that the establishment of a somewhat rare variety, as that 

 of white men naturally suited to thrive and multiply in tropiail climates, is not so great an 

 impn)bability as those anticipate, who lay exclusive stress on the tendency of rare p<<culiaritie>i 

 to disappear in a very few generations, through free intermarriage with the ordinary membeni 

 of the stock." (pp.' 400-402.) 



Galton's presidential address of 1888' turns chiefly on Alphonse liertillon's 

 system of criminal identification. The address begins with a reference to 

 Galton's short course of lectures on "Heredity and Nurture"given at the South 

 Kensington Museum in December, 1887, under the auspices of the Institute. 



"Their objtKst was to test the reality of a supposed demand for information on such subjects, 

 and so far as it was possible to judge from the results, there 8eenie<l to be a widely spread 

 interest in the matter. ...These lectures have led to at least oue tangible result. I Uwk the 

 opportunity to reiterate my often expressed regret that no anthropometric laboratory existed in 

 this country, at which children and adults of both .sexes could at small cost have their faculties 

 meivsured by the best methods known to science, and a recortl kept for future u.se. I explained 

 how ditVicult it would Ix) to maintain such a lalwratorj-, and to make it effective, except under 

 the shelter of some important institution tli.it « us duilv fr(M|iiiMit<'il bv Hip da.ss of ]><'i-sons lik>'lv 

 to make use of it." (p. 346.) 



As a result of Galton's reiteration lie was given the wotxleii building 

 iissociated with the South Kensington Museum which formed his second 



o 



' We shall return to Galton's 188G paper on this subject in the following chapter. 

 - JomiKtl o/ the Anthropological Ittalitute, Vol. xvii, pp. 346-.'>4. 



