COMPOSITE PORTRAITS, STEREOSCOPIC MAPS 261 



the first portrait was in front of it. Capping it again, 

 I took away the front portrait and exposed the second, 

 then uncapping the camera I took the second portrait ; 

 and similarly the third. The result was particularly 

 promising ; it was difficult to believe that the com- 

 posite was not a simple portrait. I tested the truth 

 of the result by placing the photographs in different 

 order, and by many other ways. Then I extended 

 its application. The method of composite portraiture 

 was first published in Nature, 1878, and more fully 

 in the Journ. Anthrop. Inst, 1879 [51], also in the 

 Journal of the Photographic Society, at which I 

 exhibited it, and elsewhere. The method is repub- 

 lished in Human Faculty [75]. 



I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness to Sir 

 Edmund Du Cane not only for helping me with 

 material for these experiments, but for having, as 

 he told me, suggested the inclusion of my finger- 

 print system in the instructions to the Committee of 

 Identification, described in the last chapter. He was 

 an extremely accomplished man, with high and 

 humane views, and sympathised with not a few of the 

 subjects on which I have been engaged. 



I have successfully made many composites both of 

 races and of families. The composites are always 

 more refined and ideal-looking than any one of their 

 components, but I found that persons did not like 

 being mixed up with their brothers and sisters in a 

 common portrait. It seems a curious and rather silly 

 feeling, but there can be no doubt of its existence. I 

 see no other reason why composite portraiture should 

 not be much employed for obtaining family types. 

 Composites might be made of brothers and sisters, 



