6 SEPTEMBER 1919, Page 13

SIR FRANCIS GALTON AND SHAPES OF FIGURES. [To THE EDITOR

Or THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I have been greatly interested in the letters in the Spectator on the different ways people see their figures, alpha- bets, &c., and it may interest your correspondents to know that Sir Francis Galton went into this subject in a book called Inquiries into Human Faculty. I think he said that about forty per cent. of people see such-and-such patterns and colours, and there are diagrams at the end showing the patterns seen by varioEs persons, some whose names are well known. I have always seen my numbers in a particular form and always appearing out of the dark on my left hand, the alphabet and months on my right. I was so laughed at in my childhood for " talking such nonsense " that I never ventured to mention it again until when grown up a friend who had had a similar snubbing showed me this book. I remember he said he saw his figures in festoons of. tens. We were both pleased to find in Sir Francis Calton's book several patterns like ours.—I am, Sir,