DERMATOGLYPHICS IX PRIMATES 185 



further discussion. In their comparative surveys of primate 

 dermatoglyphics, Whipple, Schlaginhaufen, Wilder and 

 Bychowska attempt to establish the descent of man. A detailed 

 presentation of their conclusions is considered unnecessary. 

 The approach here followed is in most respects quite new, 

 and we omit such details as being in a class with analyses 

 which deal with other anatomical criteria unrelated to the 

 present approach. 



No single line of comparison can be established with cer- 

 tainty as the most significant. The collective resemblances 

 agree with other signs indicating that man is more closely 

 related to the great apes than to other primates. According 

 to some dermatoglyphic criteria man resembles most closely 

 Pan, in others Gorilla, and in still others, Pongo. Man is 

 most closely related to chimpanzee on the basis of total pat- 

 tern intensities, relationship of pattern intensities between 

 palm and sole, and relative asymmetry of the palm. It is our 

 judgment, though we are unable to assign relative values to 

 the resemblances in other features of Pongo and Homo and 

 of Gorilla and Homo, that the criteria which ally chimpanzee 

 and man are of greater weight. This is not to be taken to mean 

 that any one of the great apes might represent an ancestral 

 type leading to man. As a matter of fact, the dermatoglyphics 

 suggest two lines of evidence contraindicating this conclusion. 

 In the first place, it appears that man must have arisen as 

 an offshoot from a primate stock lower in the scale of dermato- 

 glyphic specialization than that of any recent ape. The palm 

 is especially useful as a source of evidence, showing as it does 

 in man general ridge directions which, instead of being longi- 

 tudinal as in the apes, are more like the transverse trends 

 observed in monkeys. (Notwithstanding that palmar dermato- 

 glyphics of thousands of individuals have been examined, by 

 various workers, only one instance is known in which the 

 general ridge courses assume the longitudinal character typical 

 of the apes. Wilder, '16.) Secondly, both palm and sole of 

 man, and in spite of the peculiar modifications in the form and 

 anatomical construction of the foot, adhere closely to the 



