66 GALTON ON THE EXPLORATION OF ARID COUNTRIES. [Dec. 14, 1857. 
meals are dispensed in the three most useful cases of the “ binary 
system,” which are those contained in the first column of Table 4. 
Table 5.— Distribution of Meals. 
Binary arrangement of Party and one Section only employed. 
Distance 
in Day’s 
Journey. 
i 
3 Meals, or 
l£ Day Rations. 
7 Meals, or 
3£ Day Rations. 
11 Meals, or 
5£ Day Rations. 
CAMP. 
CAMP. 
CAMP. 
9 9 9 
© ® © 9 
© @ © © 
^ Loads of the respective 
Supporting parties. 
1 
© 0 
® © @ 
© © © © 
® 
0 e ! 
9 9® 
2 
1 
9 9 
© 0 
(Loads of the respective 
Exploring parties. 
n 
© © 
0 ® 
3 
® ® 
CO 
© © 
4 
• © 
9 
The importance of adhering strictly to the determinations of 
Table 4 is very great: thus, to take a case under the “binary 
system,” it shows that if a supporting party starts carrying more 
than 1^ and less than 3-J days’ rations per man, they can give 
no greater assistance than if they carried 1J day’s rations only. 
But, again, by looking over the Table, we find if the travellers 
adopted a system, such as is shown in the sixth column, that 
their powers of carrying 2 days’ rations per head, would be 
utilised to the utmost, and so on in any other of the vast number 
of cases which might be proposed for solution. It must be re- 
collected that a waste, which may be of little importance when 
the supporting party consists of one section only, becomes mul- 
tiplied over and over again, and increased enormously, when 
many sections are employed. Again, though the Table shows 
the load which must be carried to meet the requirements of each 
case, it does not follow that we need adhere strictly to them, but, 
for instance, a load of 3 meals may be taken as a nominal 2fths, or 
a load of 6 meals as a nominal 6^-th, and the traveller feasted or 
fasted, as the case may be, in proportion. 
