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216   Life and Letters of Francis Galton

as showing the approach to Livingstone's ground that Galton made in his journey to 'Tounobis. The Geographical Society's Journal gives also his astronomical observations for six longitudes and the latitudes of 53 stations. The map was based chiefly on triangulation with an azimuth compass. The positions thus obtained were tested with the longitudes and latitudes taken astronomically. The agreement was on the whole, fair, the longitudes (by lunars with a small circle) being least satisfactory; a result which will not surprise those who have used this method and remember that Galton's experience was chiefly, if not wholly, gained on board ship after sailing for the Cape. Galton's diaries, sketchbooks and observation books are now in the Galton Laboratory',

1 Among the books in the Galton Laboratory are (i) a small note-book with MS. native grammar, abstracts of Vardon's and Oswell's travels, lists of right ascensions and declinations of stars, a small table of logarithms, etc. It records that Professor Owen wanted the heads of wart-hogs of various ages to study their teeth, also dried heads of ostriches, especially young ones. Receipt for preserving skins and note for making experiments why a water bird's plumage gets immediately wet after being shot, etc. (ii) A quarto book of triangulations, also latitudes and longitudes. It is started by a pen and ink sketch of a saddled ox, "Ceylon-the best hack in Africa." (iii) A folio book containing route distances, bearings, itineraries, sketches. History of the Namaqua atrocities before arrival of Galton; letters to or from Jonker, Swartboy, Amiral, Cornelius and other Hottentot and some Damara leaders. Jonker's signature to his "Apology," and the laws laid down for him, both in Dutch; fragments of diaries and other notes. A good deal might be of service to a future historian of German Southwest Africa. There is a fairly extensive vocabulary. (iv) Ten small pocket note and sketch books. Sketches of native women and utensils, rough bearings and itinerary notes, journals, notes of necessaries, of talks, further vocabularies, rough drafts for Galton's law-code for the Namaquas, etc., etc. (v) A tracing of a map of which the original was said to have been left at the Cape " 7 years before," by the Rev. Mr Hahn of New Barmen, missionary. It shows a big lake, the "Demboa Sea," in Lat. 18° S. and about Long. 18° E. This is the lake to which Galton's letters several times refer but which he never really identified. If we were to trust, the missionary's map, it would be as large as Lake Ngami itself ! In a letter to Lord Campbell he supposes it Omanbonde, which is too far south. It might represent the Elosha saltpan in the wet season, then "a rather pretty lake," much displaced and immensely exaggerated in area, but it was probably Onondova.

In (iii) is a loose pencil sketch -of a small lake with steep cliff-like banks surmounted by trees, and entitled: Omutchikoto, June 25, 1851. This must be, I think, the Otchikoto, of Galton's map, reached at that date on the return journey. It is noted on the map as a small pond 400 ft. in diameter and 180 ft. deep. Galton writes: "There we took a day's rest, and amused ourselves in bathing. I made some fishhooks out of needles,-and caught about a hundred small fish, which we eat" (Tropical South Africa, 1st edn. p. 238). Otchikoto was reached. on May 26, 1851, on the


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