21 JANUARY 1911, Page 3

Sir Francis Galton, famous for his researches in the spheres

of meteorology and anthropology, died on Tuesday at tle age of eighty-eight. Sir Francis Galton, who first made his mark as a traveller sixty years ago, was the father of the modern system of weather-mapping, and in 1869 published the first of his remarkable works dealing with the laws of heredity, which culminated, towards the close of his long life, in his efforts to establish the problem of race improvement on a scientific basis and the endowment of a research fellow- ship in the University of London for the promotion of the study of Eugenics. Incidentally we may note that as the result of his own observations from the eugenic standpoint be found London to rank highest for beauty and Aberdeen lowest. He was also the inventor of the composite portrait, and his finger- print system, based on Bertillon's anthropometrio method, has with some modifications been adopted by our police. Only two years ago he published a genial volume of remi- niscences containing many curious and humorous illustrations of his methods of investigation. Thus as a young man be resolved to test the effect of medicines in the pharmacopoeia in alphabetical order on himself. Later on in life he took Herbert Spencer to see the "Derby." As the grandson of Erasmus Darwin and cousin of Charles Darwin, he was him- self a conspicuous example of his favourite theory that genius is a matter of ancestry.