knowledge of that subject, which was defined as “the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally.” Galton was the author of memoirs on various anthropometric subjects; he originated the process of composite portraiture, and paid much attention to finger-prints and their employment for the identification of criminals, his publications on this subject including Finger Prints (1892), Decipherment of Blurred Finger Prints (1893) and Finger Print Directories (1895). From the Royal Society, of which he was elected a fellow in 1860, he received a royal medal in 1886 and the Darwin medal in 1902, and honorary degrees were bestowed on him by Oxford (1894) and Cambridge (1895). In 1908 he published Memories of My Life, and in 1909 he received a knighthood.
GALUPPI, BALDASSARE (1706–1785), Italian musical composer,
was born on the 18th of October 1706 on the island of
Burano near Venice, from which he was often known by the
nickname of Buranello. His father, a barber, and violinist at the
local theatre, was his first teacher. His first opera, composed at
the age of sixteen, being hissed off the stage, he determined to
study seriously, and entered the Conservatorio degli Incurabili at
Venice, as a pupil of Antonio Lotti. After successfully producing
two operas in collaboration with a fellow-pupil, G. B. Pescetti, in
1728 and 1729, he entered upon a busy career as a composer of
operas for Venetian theatres, writing sometimes as many as five
in a year. He visited London in 1741, and arranged a pasticcio,
Alexander in Persia, for the Haymarket. Burney considered his
influence on English music to have been very powerful. In 1740
he became vice-maestro di cappella at St Mark’s and maestro in
1762. In 1749 he began writing comic operas to libretti by
Goldoni, which enjoyed an enormous popularity. He was invited
to Russia by Catherine II. in 1766, where his operas made a
favourable impression, and his influence was also felt in Russian
church music. He returned to Venice in 1768, where he had held
the post of director of the Conservatorio degli Incurabili since
1762. He died on the 3rd of January 1785.
Galuppi’s best works are his comic operas, of which Il Filosofo di Campagna (1754), known in England as The Guardian Trick’d (Dublin, 1762) was the most popular. His melody is attractive rather than original, but his workmanship in harmony and orchestration is generally superior to that of his contemporaries. He seems to have been the first to extend the concerted finales of Leo and Logroscino into a chain of several separate movements, working up to a climax, but in this respect he is much inferior to Sarti and Mozart.
Browning’s poem, “A Toccata of Galuppi,” does not refer to any known composition, but more probably to an imaginary extemporization on the harpsichord, such as was of frequent occurrence in the musical gatherings of Galuppi’s day.
See also Alfred Wotquerme, Baldassare Galuppi, étude bibliographique sur ses œuvres dramatiques (Brussels, 1902). Many of his autograph scores are in the library of the Brussels conservatoire. (E. J. D.)
GALVANI, LUIGI (1737–1798), Italian physiologist, after
whom galvanism received its name, was born at Bologna on the
9th of September 1737. It was his wish in early life to enter the
church, but by his parents he was educated for a medical career.
At the university of Bologna, in which city he practised, he was
in 1762 appointed public lecturer in anatomy, and soon gained
repute as a skilled though not eloquent teacher, and, chiefly from
his researches on the organs of hearing and genito-urinary tract
of birds, as a comparative anatomist. His celebrated theory
of animal electricity he enunciated in a treatise, “De viribus
electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius,” published in the
7th volume of the memoirs of the Institute of Sciences at Bologna
in 1791, and separately at Modena in the following year, and
elsewhere subsequently. The statement has frequently been
repeated that, in 1786, Galvani had noticed that the leg of a
skinned frog, on being accidentally touched by a scalpel which
had lain near an electrical machine, was thrown into violent
convulsions; and that it was thus that his attention was first
directed to the relations of animal functions to electricity. From
documents in the possession of the Institute of Bologna, however,
it appears that twenty years previous to the publication of his
Commentary Galvani was already engaged in investigations as
to the action of electricity upon the muscles of frogs. The
observation that the suspension of certain of these animals on an
iron railing by copper hooks caused twitching in the muscles of
their legs led him to the invention of his metallic arc, the first
experiment with which is described in the third part of the
Commentary, with the date September 20, 1786. The arc he
constructed of two different metals, which, placed in contact
the one with a frog’s nerve and the other with a muscle, caused
contraction of the latter. In Galvani’s view the motions of the
muscle were the result of the union, by means of the metallic arc,
of its exterior or negative electrical charge with positive electricity
which proceeded along the nerve from its inner substance. Volta,
on the other hand, attributed them solely to the effect of
electricity having its source in the junction of the two dissimilar
metals of the arc, and regarded the nerve and muscle simply as
conductors. On Galvani’s refusal, from religious scruples, to
take the oath of allegiance to the Cisalpine republic in 1797, he
was removed from his professorship. Deprived thus of the means
of livelihood, he retired to the house of his brother Giacomo,
where he soon fell into a feverish decline. The republican
government, in consideration of his great scientific fame, eventually,
but too late, determined to reinstate him in his chair, and he
died at Bologna on the 4th of December 1798.
A quarto edition of his works was published at Bologna in 1841–1842, by the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of that city, under the title Opere edite ed inedite del professore Luigi Galvani.
GALVANIZED IRON, sheet iron having its surface covered
with a thin coating of zinc. In spite of the name, galvanic
action has often no part in the production of galvanized iron,
which is prepared by dipping the iron, properly cleaned and
pickled in acid, in a bath of molten zinc. The hotter the zinc the
thinner the coating, but as a high temperature of the bath is
attended with certain objections, it is a common practice to use a
moderate temperature and clear off the excess of zinc by passing
the plates between rollers. In Norwood and Rogers’s process a
thin coating of tin is applied to the iron before it is dipped in the
zinc, by putting the plates between layers of granulated tin in a
wooden tank containing a dilute solution of stannous chloride,
when tin is deposited on them by galvanic action. In “cold
galvanizing” the zinc is deposited electrolytically from a bath,
preferably kept neutral or slightly acid, containing a 10%
solution of crystallized zinc sulphate, ZnSO4·7H2O. The resulting
surface is usually duller and less lustrous than that obtained by
the use of molten zinc. Another method of forming a coating of
zinc, known as “sherardizing,” was invented by Sherard Cowper-Coles,
who found that metals embedded in zinc dust (a product
obtained in zinc manufacture and consisting of metallic zinc mixed
with a certain amount of zinc oxide) and heated to temperatures
well below the melting point of zinc, become coated with a layer
of that metal. In carrying out the process the articles are placed
in an air-tight vessel with the zinc dust, which must be dry, and
subjected to a heat of 250-330°C., the time for which the heating
is continued depending on the thickness of the deposit required
and varying from one-half to several hours. If an air-tight
receptacle is not available, a small percentage of powdered carbon
is added to the zinc-dust, to prevent increase in the amount of
oxide, which, if present in excess, tends to make the deposit dull.
Galvanized iron by its zinc surface is protected from corrosion by the weather, though the protection is not very efficient in the presence of acid or sulphurous fumes, and accordingly it is extensively employed for roofing, especially in the form of corrugated sheets. The iron wire used for wire-netting, telegraphic purposes, &c., is commonly galvanized, as also are bolts, nuts, chains and other fittings on ships.
GALVANOMETER, an instrument for detecting or measuring electric currents. The term is generally applied to instruments which indicate electric current in scale divisions or arbitrary units, as opposed to instruments called amperemeters (q.v.), which show directly on a dial the value of the current in amperes.
