Amusement Chests and Portable Laboratories: Practical Alternatives to the Regular Laboratory

Abstract

One of the many tasks carried out by Sir Francis Galton — that tireless Victorian geographer, meteorologist, anthropologist, psychologist, statistician, biometrician and general jack of all science — was to inquire of some 180 eminent persons how they came to develop scientific interests in their youth.¹ Several replied by relating how their first contact had arisen through chemical chests and portable laboratories. Taking this clue beyond the anonymity of Galton’s respondents, further insight may be gained from the obituary notices of Fellows of the Royal Society. Two examples alone are considered here.