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Visual Memory.

But beside this sublimated use of the permanent memory and discrimination, there is another very crude and transient discrimination which is also needed in actual work. A visual memory of the site and excavations should be constantly in mind; the master should be able to go over the whole site, and every man at work on it, entirely from memory; he should be able to realise at once, on seeing the place next day, exactly how every one of fifty different holes looked the day before; and know at once where the work stood, and what has been done since, so as to measure it up without depending on any statements by the workmen. If a boy comes with a message that Ibrahim or Mutwali needs direction, the master should be able to visualise the place, inquire what has been done, and how each part now stands, and then give sufficient temporary direction entirely from memory of the site, and memory of what he expected to do, or to prove, or to find, from that particular hole. The extent of this visual memory is never realised until one meets with some who are so unlucky as not to possess such an apparatus, and who are therefore unable to know what has been done, and have to begin each day’s work as if they were strangers to the place. Of all inherent mental qualifications there is perhaps none more essential to a digger than this permanent picture of a site in the mind. And the transient memory from day to day should include the appearance of every hole on all sides, the meaning of it and the purpose for which it is being dug.