378 Life and Letters of Francis Galton
investigated whether there was any relation between superior strength of the right or left hand and superior reading power of the right or left eye. Presumably he made a correlation table he tells us that he found no association, but he considers that an association would be less improbable had he been able to compare the difference in skill of right and left hands with the difference in vision of the right and left eyes.
The paper concludes with the data on highest audible note referred to on our p. 221.
A study of this paper suggests at once the road along which Galton was being carried towards the conception of correlation; we shall see soon how he recognised that the numerical association between two anthropometric variates and the quantitative measure of the intensity of the hereditary factor were one and the same mathematical problem.
While Galton began immediately to use his data for the problem of correlation he did not hesitate to place portions of it before other investigators that they might if they liked reduce it by other methods. Thus in 1889 he published' data for 400 of the 518 individuals, extracted by Mr J. H. Young (see our p. 375). These data are for adults aged 23, 24 and 25, and for other individuals than those he himself used in his 1888 Royal Society memoir on Correlation. They give Age, Status (married or single), Eye Colour, Birthplace, Occupation, Residence, Vital Capacity, Squeeze of both hands, Span, Sitting Height, Stature and Weight in ordinary indoor clothing. As far as I know they have never been reduced, and would prove rather inadequate in number if allowance were made for birthplace and occupation. For a really full discussion of these matters, it would be needful to return to the much fuller material in the far more numerous original records.
Two further papers remain to be touched on, although of a much later period than the first Anthropometric Laboratory. It will, I think, be wiser to take the later of these first, because it gives us more of the history of his laboratories. It is entitled : " Retrospect of Work done at my Anthropometric Laboratory at South Kensington," and was published in 18912.
Galton's Anthropometric Laboratory on the closing of the Health Exhibition in 1885 had been transferred to a piece of vacant ground, which later was taken over by the Imperial Institute. Here the laboratory, under Serjeant Randal as Superintendent, continued its work for five years, and an additional 3678 persons were measured. New measurements and observations were made, including the wonderful collection of finger-prints now in the Galtoniana. But Galton after six years' experience had begun to realise that an Anthropometric Laboratory cannot remain stationary either in its methods or instruments. It must always be starting new inquiries, and needs for this purpose a scientific research staff. He had himself used his laboratory for various special researches, such as the Finger-Print inquiry, the question
1 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Vol. xviii, pp. 420-30.
2 Ibid. Vol. xxi, pp. 32-5. The Laboratory was dismantled in February 1891, and reopened August 3, 1891. Galton states in his Retrospect that the South Kensington Museum authorities had offered to place a larger and better lighted space at his disposal under their
own roof.
