Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/57

together, to approximate still closer until they became entirely coincident, a condition not infrequent.

These modifications of areas may be readily expressed in terms of the primary lines which determine and bound them, and as each of these four lines possesses a large number of possible positions, they may be made the basis of a classification by which an individual palm not only might have a definite place in a series, but might also be conveniently designated and briefly described; furthermore, the terms constantly occurring in such a description might be expressed by obvious symbols, thus reducing it to a simple formula. To illustrate this the four palms given in Fig. 6 may be described in terms of the primary lines as follows:

(a) Line 1, open to margin; line 2, open to margin; line 3, fused with eighth digital line; line 4, recurrent, dividing third palmar area.

(b) Line 1, open to margin, low; line 2, open to margin; line 3, fused with line 4; line 4, fused with line 3.

(c) Line 1, involved in pattern, returning above; line 2, fused with line 4; line 3, recurrent, dividing third palmar area; line 4, fused with line 2.

(d) Line 1, open to margin; line 2, fused with line 3; line 3, fused with line 2; line 4, dividing first palmar area.

By the employment of a few obvious symbols these descriptions might be transformed into formulæ, as, for example:

(a)0 — 0 — d₈ — P₃/4
(b)0 — 0 — $+$4 — $+$ 3
(c)In H ret. above — $+$4 — P₃/3 — $+$ 2
(d)0 — $+$ 3 — $+$ 2  — P₁/4

This exposition of individual differences in the course of the papillary ridges, and the suggestion of methods of recording, interpreting and describing them, leads us away from the realm of morphology to that of their practical use in establishing personal identity and thus brings us to the work of Mr. Francis Galton, who by the patient observation of a long series of years has elaborated a system by which personal identification may be established by the use of the apical patterns. As a result, primarily, of the suggestions of Sir William Herschel, Galton in his anthropological laboratory at South Kensington, has spent years in collecting data for his work, and to him belongs the entire credit of having established the two essential facts upon which all claim to the value of such markings in the point at issue must rest, namely; (1) their absolutely individual character, and the impossibility of an exact duplicature in two individuals and (2) their permanence throughout life.^[1]

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1. See for this Galton's numerous publications on the subject and especially his two books on 'Finger Prints' and 'The Decipherment of Blurred and Indistinct Finger Prints.' Macmillan, 1892-94.