740 REPORT — 1881. 



chiefly through Australian experiences, where, moreover, the camel has been 

 introduced as a beast of burden, with more success than the tamed elephant iu 

 Africa, The art of sledge-travelling has been vastly improved by the skilful cut- 

 ting down of all superfluous weight, enabling travellers to drag more food, and 

 so to be absent from their depots for a larger number of days. 



As regards food, the tinned meats, compressed vegetables, and condensed milk, 

 which are invaluable during the first days of travel before the expedition has 

 settled into regular ways, are all late inventions, and the merits of lime-juice are 

 now far better understood than they were fifty years ago. 



The persminel of a travelling party is decidedly improved. Whatever may be the 

 state of the physique of the lower orders of the population, there can be no doubt 

 that the upper orders are physically better developed than they were. They are, 

 as I have good reason to believe, in the absence of direct measurements, taller ; 

 they achieve greater feats in running, leaping, walking, and other athletic perform- 

 ances than their grandfathers did. They lead healthier lives from the discontinu- 

 ance of the heavy eating and hard drinking of old days, from the better aired 

 sleeping rooms, the existence of proper means of washing, and the seaside or Con- 

 tinental summer vacation. 



The greatest benefit of all to travellers is the modern rapidity and ease with 

 which distant parts of the world are now reached. In 1830 it required 70 days 

 sailing from England to reach the Cape of Good Hope, 120 days (in the S.W. 

 monsoon) to reach Bombay, and 130 days to Sydney. It was 40 days' sail to 

 New York, 42 to Jamaica, 66 to Rio, and 110 to Valparaiso. The length of 

 time that the post now takes from London to these places is as follows : Cape 

 Town 21 days, Bombay 18 days, Sydney 43 days, New York 10 days, Jamaica IS 

 days, Rio 21 days. Valparaiso 39 days ; the average increase of speed being more 

 than threefold. There is scarcely any important part of the world that cannot 

 now be reached in two months from London ; even the Antipodes are only six 

 weeks' journey. This facility of communication is accompanied by a corresponding 

 spread of commerce, and travellers can now easily refit themselves at distant 

 points. It has recently occurred to the Geographical Society to have had to meet 

 bills drawn upon her Majesty's consul at Zanzibar by a traveller in their employ, 

 for which he had been furnished with goods by Arab traders at Nyangwe on the 

 Upper Congo, as well as at places in Central Africa which had never before been 

 visited by a white man. 



2. Isoclironic Postal Charts. By Feancis Galton, F.B.S. 



By ' isochronic ' postal charts I mean charts that show the distances attained 

 in all directions from the same starting point, by the post, 'in equal times.' Let 

 us view in imagination the stream of travellers who leave London simultaneously 

 and go as quickly as they can to their destinations, starting by the postal routes. 

 Some of the travellers will be seen to leave the main lines at each successive 

 halting-place, and to branch to the right and to the left, perhaps repeatedly 

 and by various conveyances, before their journey is over. Thev may reach the 

 same goal by diflPerent routes, though not at the same moment. In the meantime the 

 travellers on the main tracks are swiftly moving ahead. At length every part of 

 the world is reached. The course of the stream of travellers may be likened to 

 the spreading of the tide as it advances over broad sands. The rising waters run 

 quickly along certain channels. These diverge, subdivide, interlace, and join. 

 After a little more time only a few isolated patches of dry shore can be seen, at last 

 the whole surface is overspread by the water. In the maps I exhibit, I have en- 

 deavoured to represent this appearance upon all the postal routes from London. 

 In accordance with the definition of 'isochronic' given above, I am obliged to 

 suppose that the mails have been despatched simultaneously to all parts, and I 

 show by bands of different colours where the travellers would be at different 

 periods. All places within ten days' journey of London are coloured green, those 

 between ten and twenty are orange, between twenty and thirty they are red, 

 between thirty and forty they are blue, and those beyond forty are brown. 



