NA TURE 



i»i 



THLRSDAY, DECEMBER \-, 



1908. 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PRACTICAL 



PHILOSOPHER. 



Mcniprics of My Life. By Dr. Francis Gallon, 



F.R.S. Pp. viii + 33q; with 7 illustrations. 



(London : Methuen and Co., n.d.) Price io5. 6d. 



net. 



THOSE who are interested in the history of the 

 growth of science in this country and in the 

 men who participated in its development will thank 

 Dr. Galton for having provided them with a char- 

 acteristic account of his own life and of his rela- 

 tions with three generations of men of thought and 

 action. Although Dr. Galton has provided a precis 

 wherein those who know something of the author 

 and his deeds can read between the lines, a biographer 

 is still needed who will portray to the world what 

 manner of man he is. Probably many will feel that 

 the autobiographer's " fear " is well grounded that 

 he may "have failed throug-h over omission." 



That love of accuracy which runs through all his 

 work appears on every page of the memories, dates 

 are scattered with profusion, and the frequently re- 

 corded personal incidents will delight the heart of 

 future bibliographers. The book contains two excel- 

 lent portraits and a bibliography of the author's writ- 

 ings. 



Verv briefly, in a chapter on parentage, Dr. Galton 

 indicates the origin of his hereditary tendencies, and 

 the following four chapters narrate the influences of 

 companions, school, and university which moulded his 

 " status of pupilhood." His paternal grandfather was 

 a statistician, and so was his father; as to his mother, 

 it is only necessary to state she was a Darwin. To 

 his progenitors he was indebted for " a considerable 

 taste for science, for poetry, and for statistics; also, 

 partlv through the Barclay blood, a rather unusual 

 power of enduring physical fatigue without harmful 

 results," and, it mav be added, certain of the qualities 

 of the Quakers, though adhesion to the Society of 

 Friends practically ceased with his grandfather's gene- 

 ration. On the whole he gained little from the schools 

 he attended, and at the age of sixteen he took up his 

 abode, as indoor pupil, in the Birmingham General 

 Hospital; his early experiences and the ideas that oc- 

 curred to him make interesting reading. Later he 

 went to King's College, London, and enjoyed to the 

 full the wider intellectual outlook and companionship 

 of distinguished men. The passion for travel seized 

 him in 1840, and he went to Giessen to study chem- 

 istrv, but he played truant, and made an adventurous 

 voyage down the Danube to the Black Sea. A visit 

 to Constantinople and Smyrna fired his imagination. 

 This little expedition proved to be an important factor 

 in moulding his after-life; it vastly widened his views 

 of humanitv and civilisation, and confirmed his aspira- 

 tions for travel. The first year at Trinity College, 

 Cambridge, " was a period of general progress, with- 

 out much of note." The reading parties in the long 

 .vacations and the later terms were full of the in- 

 spiriting influence of older and younger men who 

 NO. 2042, VOL. 79] 



have left their mark on the intellectual history of 

 Britain, and he points out " the enormous advantages 

 offered by a university to those who care to profit by 

 them." His health broke down in his third year, and 

 it comes as a shock to learn that he was obliged to 

 content himself with a poll degree; but this has since 

 been made up to him by his university giving him 

 an honorary degree of doctor in science (1895), and 

 his college electing him to an honorary fellowship 

 (1902). 



The following seven years fall into three periods. 

 A visit to Egypt, when he visited Khartum, went some 

 distance up the White Nile, and had several journeys 

 across the desert, was not the pleasure trip it is 

 to-day. This was followed by a tour in Syria. Some 

 four years were then spent at home, reading, hunting, 

 and sailing; it was at this time he invented an ap- 

 paratus, the telotype, for printing telegraphic mes- 

 sages. 



In 1850 he fitted out an expedition to a portion 

 of south-west Africa which was then absolutely unex- 

 plored. The results of this noteworthy expedition 

 were published in " Tropical South Africa " (1853), and 

 laid the basis of our present knowledge of the country 

 and peqple of Damaraland. Recognition followed this 

 hazardous and fruitful enterprise in the bestowal of 

 the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society, 

 the fellowship of the Royal Society, and the mem- 

 bership of the Athenaeum Club. A further result of 

 this experience was the publication of that eminently 

 practical book, "The Art of Travel," which is re- 

 plete with common sense. Dr. Galton for many years 

 served on the council of the Royal Geographical 

 Society, and was intimately connected . with the ex- 

 peditions of the great African travellers Burton, 

 Speke, Grant, Baker, and Livingstone. It was due 

 to his initiative that the society interested itself in 

 geographical education at first in public schools and 

 iatterly in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 



In 1853 Dr. Galton married and settled in London. 

 Then began a life full of intellectual activity which 

 has persisted to the present moment; various tours 

 were taken in Britain and on the Continent, and a 

 passion for mountaineering was developed, but no 

 extended expedition was attempted. Dr. Galton early 

 became a member of the managing committee of the 

 Kew Observatorv, then the central magnetic ob- 

 servatory of the w^orld ; he became chairman in 1889, 

 and held that post until 1901, when the observatory 

 ceased to be an independent body ; now it is merged 

 into the National Phvsical Laboratory. The peculiar 

 Inventive genius of Dr. Galton here had full scope, 

 and he busied himself with standardising sextants, 

 thermometers, and other instruments of precision. His 

 interest in the movements of the air led him to map 

 out the data. He was the first to recognise the down- 

 rush of air associated with a high, barometer and a 

 clear skv, with an outflow having a clock-ways twist 

 which is the exact opposite of a cyclone and sup- 

 plementary to it. He named this system an " anti- 

 cyclone." . 



Always interested in the problems of heredity, Dr. 

 Galton "has devoted the best years of his life to a 

 studv of heritabilitv in man, as the following land- 

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