Steve Jones writes in the BBC News on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Francis Galton's death: "Francis Galton: The man who drew up the 'ugly map' of Britain". He cites many interesting tidbits, this was my favorite:
In a letter to Nature in 1879 entitled The Average Flush of Excitement, Galton recounts a visit to the Derby. He noted that while he was there he was able to assess what he called "the average tint of the complexion of the British upper classes" by observing the distant crowd through his opera glass.
He observed that after the race started, the crowd became "suffused with a strong pink tint, just as though a sun-set glow had fallen upon it". Galton found that he could work out the mood of a mass of people even without being able to distinguish one person from the next.
