174 CHARLES MIDLO AND HAROLD CUMMINS 



In man there are well recognized dermatoglyphic differ- 

 ences among races, as well as sexual, bimanual and constitu- 

 tional distinctions. Though references are not cited, the details 

 being of no importance in this discussion, an illustration is 

 offered in the frequencies of whorls of the fingertips in dif- 

 ferent races. The lowest known frequency of whorls, 19% 

 of all fingertip patterns, occurs in the Efe pygmies of Africa. 

 The Eskimos of Eastern Greenland present, in contrast, a 

 frequency of 72% whorls. Many other examples of wide dif- 

 ferences among races might be mentioned. It is hardly likely 

 that different races of mankind would be so markedly divergent 

 as a result of an evolution dependent upon the greater fric- 

 tional or tactual serviceability of one type of configuration 

 over another. 



There is a close parallelism between dermatoglyphic con- 

 figurations and hair direction. Hair direction, as studied in 

 the human fetus (Ludwig, '21), presents configurations which 

 may be likened to the characteristics of dermatoglyphics. 

 Among other correspondences there are hair streams over 

 large areas which simulate open fields, vortices which com- 

 pare to patterns, and junction points between hair systems 

 which find their counterparts in triradii. As another point 

 of likeness, the hair directions are determined by mechanical 

 factors in fetal growth, and they are subject to individual 

 variations of the same fundamental nature as the variations 

 in dermatoglyphics. Skin folds and stripes of pigmentation 

 (Krieg, '21) and various other parallels with dermatoglyphic 

 principles also might be mentioned in support of our inter- 

 pretation that the dermatoglyphics are inadequate as an ef- 

 fective primary evolutionary medium. In our opinion a specific 

 configuration of epidermal ridges is no more significant from 

 this standpoint than is a specific configuration of hair direc- 

 tion or a particular pattern of striping on the forehead of a 

 zebra. 



Though studies are not yet available for an all-inclusive 

 survey of the primates with reference to the fetal history 

 of volar pads, it may be assumed that the dermatoglyphics 



