News

New at galton.org

Nov. 12/07.

Added "Chance and its Bearing in Heredity" from the Birmingham Daily Mail (1886/12/07).

Nov. 07/07.

Added the newly discovered letter "On the reported current in the Suez Canal" from Nature 1870/07/07: 189.
Added the newly discovered letter "Geographical Prizes" from Nature 1870/07/14: 210.
Added the previously undiscovered book review of Étude sur la Dégénerescence Physiologique des Peuples Civilisés by Par M. Tschouriloff, from Nature 1877/03/08: 396.
Added the previously undiscovered book review of Georg Mayr Die Naturkräfte from Nature 1877/10/11: 500.
Added the previously undiscovered scathing book review of J. M. Guyay Education and Heredity from Nature 1891-07-30: 292-3. "As a contribution to science the book cannot be recommended. Whether it has a theological value, we must leave for others to say."

Oct. 29/07.

Added the previously unknown item "Weather Maps" from the Proceedings of the British Meteorological Society (1: June, 1862): 203-4.
Added the long-sought-after item "Meteorological instructions for the use of inexperienced Observers resident abroad", from the Proceedings of the British Meteorological Society (1: June 1863): 397-400. Like the rest of the uncollected items from the bibliography, it was not listed accurately until now.

Aug. 02/07.

Added the newly discovered letter from Galton, "Dermal Topography", in The American Anthropologist 1, 188: 177. This is one of Galton's earliest published mentions of fingerprints.

Jul. 31/07.

Added "The Sources of the Nile", Galton's anonymous notice of communications from Speke and Grant, published in the Edinburgh Review CCXLI, July 1863: 105-16.
Added the exceptionally rare pamphlet "Catalogue of Models and Specimens [Illustrative of the Arts of Camp Life]" published in 1858. Galton exhibited these models again as part of the 1876 South Kensington Museum Special Loan Collection.

Jul. 30/07.

Added the newly discovered letter "Organic Stability" in Science New Series 1 (18) May 3, 1895: 482-3.
Added the newly discovered article "Useful Anthropometry" in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education 1891.
Added the newly discovered review by Galton, "A German Manual of Scientific Enquiry" Nature 11 (278) February 25, 1875: 321-2.

Jul. 29/07:

Added the pamphlet reprint of Generic Images, which has minor variations, and an autotype plate.
Added the pamphlet reprint of Psychometric Experiments.

Jul. 25/07:

Added the first, second and third editions of The Art of Travel.
Added the first edition of Hereditary Genius.
Added the fourth and fifth editions of Hints to Travellers.
Added a complete facsimile of the first edition of Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa (1853) with all the colour plates and maps. This is far superior to the second (cheap) edition published by the Minerva Library.

Jul. 23/07:

Added a facsimile of the exceptionally rare pamphlet by Galton, Anthropometric Laboratory. Notes and Memoirs. [No. 1].
Added complete facsimiles of Vacation Tourists and Notes of Travel in 1861, and Vacation Tourists and Notes of Travel in 1862-3.
Added a facsimile of the pamphlet Address to the Anthropological Department of the British Association, Plymouth, 1877.

Dec. 28/05:

Added Galton's published reminiscences of Herbert Spencer, which should be compared with his MS in Pearson's Life.

Dec. 03/05:

The site has been moved to a hosting facility with high-speed internet connections. The preferred name is now galton.org.
Numerous papers from the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, all of them previously unlisted, have been added.
All previously uncollected papers from the French Revue Scientifique have been added in facsimile form. These include some previously unlisted items.
Search is now integrated in the left hand corner in the header for all pages. Type the terms and hit enter.
Other miscellaneous bibliographical additions and corrections.

Sep. 19/05:

Turned up another scarce pamphlet, Anthropometric Laboratory: Arranged by Francis Galton. (1884) "Such is the ease of working the instruments that a person can be measured in these respects, and a card containing the results furnished to him, and a duplicate made and preserved for statistical purposes, at a total cost of 3d."

June 20/05:

Added Galton's exceptionally rare pamphlet Outfit for an Anthropometric Laboratory (1883), which was privately printed.

June 14/05:

Added contributions by Galton to the (elegantly titled) compendium Katalog Mathematische und Mathematisch-Physikalischer Modelle, Apparate und Instrumente (Van Dyck, Munich: 1892) on the Quincunx, Trace Computer of Vapour Tension, and Pantagraph. These are German translations, prepared by an instrument maker for the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung, of the currently unobtainable Galton articles in the Reports of the Meteorological Committee of the Royal Society from 1869 onwards. One of the items in this collection was referred to by Pearson, others were not and seem to have slipped notice: all have been omitted from all previous bibliographies. One could infer from the catalog that the Quincunx was commercially manufactured, in Germany at least. Perhaps, slumbering in an attic somewhere in Bavaria ... .

June 9/05:

New edition of the rare book Meteorographica (1863) with greatly improved fidelity. Galton had the remaining copies of this book destroyed by Macmillan when he joined the Meteorological Council (according to the Macmillans correspondence with Galton now held in the British Library).

June 7/05:

Finally tracked down "Rate of Bicycles" in the Field of 1875, incorrectly listed by Forrest (1974) as "Bicycle Speedometer 1877". Forrest clearly relied on the description in Pearson, who gave the date as "about 1877".
Added a previously unlisted and rare pamphlet "Brief Notes for Consideration: Skin Sensation" circa 1883.
Added the little-known article "Heredity in business merit" from the short-lived, religiously-oriented, Journal of Heredity, 1885, published in Chicago.
Added the hard-to-find "Limits of Audible Sound" and "On Means of Combining Various Data in Maps and Diagrams" contributions from Vols. 1 and 2 of the South Kensington Museum's Conferences held in connection with the special loan collection of scientific apparatus, 1876 published in 1877.
Added "Measurement of Resemblance" from the Scientific American Supplement of 1906.

May 22/05:

Added Index to Achievements of Near-Kinsfolk of Some of the Fellows of the Royal Society (R. Clay and Sons, 1904) and Probability: the Foundation of Eugenics
(Oxford, 1907).
Added Samuel John Galton's paper on his colour experiments (Monthly Magazine, 1799); Samuel John was Francis' grandfather.
Added a book by Emma Galton, Francis's sister: Guide to the Unprotected ... by a Banker's Daughter (Macmillan, 1863).

May 19/05:

Added remarks made by Galton in the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts on Ostrich Farming in South Africa, (Feb 18, 1876); on "Exploration and the Best Outfit for Such Work" (Mar 13, 1881); and on the teaching of geography (June 16, 1871).
Added two newly discovered items from Notes and Queries: a reply by Galton to a question on the Foula (1864); and a query on the Bickerstaffs (1870).
Added a long-overlooked and very substantial piece by Galton, published in the St Helena Gazette of January 31 1852: this is the first published description of his explorations of South-West Africa.
Added a report from The Reader of 19 September 1863, which has some remarks made by Galton on race.

May 18/05:

Added profile of Galton from the Strand Magazine of 1897.
Added an unlisted interview of Galton by the Pall Mall Gazette of Nov. 16, 1888, about the Anthropometric Laboratory.
Added a previously un-noticed reply by Galton in the Notes and Queries of Nov. 14, 1885, to a query on an astronomical paradox.

May 17/05:

Added interview of Galton by Cassell's Saturday Journal: March 25, 1896.
Added "Our National Physique: Prospects of the British Race" a newspaper article by Galton, published in The Daily Chronicle of July 29 1903.
Added a newly discovered query on bark vessels by Galton, from the Notes and Queries of Feb 23, 1856.
Added a lengthy exchange by Galton, starting with observations on photographic records of pedigree stock, but diverging into a debate with William Housman on the "Ancestral Law", from the Live Stock Journal of 1898. Galton seldom involved himself in exchanges of this sort.

May 16/05:

Discovered a long-lost piece by Galton, published in Notes and Queries in 1875, on some verses by his grandfather Erasmus Darwin. Galton noticed that they were plagiarized by another poet.
Added the version of The First Steps Towards the Domestication of Animals published as a booklet in 1865: the facsimile includes marginal notes and corrections by Galton in his handwriting.
Also added the exceptionally hard-to-find exchange in the Homing News and Pigeon Fancier's Journal of 1894 concerning the normal distribution of racing speeds, which suggests that readers of even the most obscure of the Victorian journals were well-read.

February 05/05:

Activated the galton.org mailing list. Subscribe to get news of site updates and other galtoniana.

February 04/05:

Added a complete facsimile of the exceptionally rare pamphlet A Descriptive List of Anthropometric Apparatus 1887

January 14/05:

Added a complete facsimile of Galton's first publication The Telotype (1849) and a facsimile of the original map of Damaraland prepared by Galton.

November 03/04:

Added German translation of Tropical South Africa, Bericht Eine Forschers in Tropischen Sudafrika.

October 24/04:

Provided full-text versions of important works on fingerprinting by E. R. Henry, William Herschel, and Henry Faulds. Streamlined look-and-feel.

April 5/04:

New HTML version of Inquiries into Human Faculty.

April 2004:

New HTML version of Hereditary Genius, with latest corrections and decent page numbering and formatting.

April 2004:

New section on Galton as Psychologist.

March 2004:

Added review of Raymond Fancher's paper on Galton's African Ethnography.

December 2003:

Added new bibliography system, with a batch of previously unknown letters to the Times, and other new discoveries. Also added a new Reviews section.

December 2003:

Added some missing letters from the Times (many more will be added soon) and other papers, and made the catalogue of the Galton papers searchable.

November 2003:

Michael Bulmer's new book on Galton has at last been published.

October 2003:

Added full text of Meteorographica and Noteworthy Families.

September 2003:

New section on ancestry.

September 2003:

Added numerous scientific papers etc. by Galton not previously published here. Consult the bibliography for details - and note that several previously unknown items have been added to the bibliography.
Added first online edition of Record of Family Faculties.
Added ability to browse books online, by screen-resolution page image. This way books can be read without first downloading the entire high-quality PDF files, which are typically very large. For print-quality, use the PDF files. For example, Pearson's Life can now be browsed by page image.

August 2003:

Added a very high-quality facsimile version of Volume 2 of Pearson's Life of Galton.

June 2003:

Added very high-quality facsimile versions of Volume 3 and Volume 1 of Pearson's Life of Galton.

January 2003:

Added full-text search capability for all of Galton's books.

November 2, 2002:

First online electronic edition of Finger Prints and Fingerprint Directories.

October 18, 2002:

Review of Gerald Sweeney Fighting for the Good Cause: Reflections on Francis Galton's Legacy to American Hereditarian Psychology (APS, 2001)

October 14, 2001:

Added several reviews of Galton's work from the Victorian periodical press.

The Reading Room of the Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall, London
Galton was elected to the club, which had a literary-scientific reputation, in 1855.
Other members included Dickens and Charles Darwin.