172 HARRIS HAWTHORNE WILDER. 



find no direct reference to it in any of my writings. I have 

 indicated this condition in formulae, however, by the digit 8, 

 the designation for the radius of origin of the missing line, in- 

 tending to signify by this that it goes nowhere, yet I am quite 

 ready to acknowledge that the meaning of this is not clear, and 

 that Loth's use of the letter x is much clearer. 



Since the condition itself is an interesting one, I have recently 

 taken some pains to estimate its frequency. In the hands of 145 

 white persons (mostly Smith College students) a complete loss 

 of line C, with its triradius, was found in both hands in four cases; 

 in the right alone in five; and in the left alone in eight. That is, 

 out of 145 individuals, no less than 17 of them showed a complete 

 loss of the C line in one or both hands; or, put another way, out of 

 290 separate hands 21 were thus marked. In addition to these, 

 nine more individuals possessed in one hand a very short and 

 straight C line, ending in a loop, and as these were none of them 

 duplicate individuals w r ith any of the above or with each other, 

 this gives a total of 26 individuals out of the 145 in which the 

 term x ( = 8) occurs in one or both of the hand formulae as a 

 designation of the condition of line C; that is, nearly 18 per cent. 



Comparing the palms of races other than white I found eight 

 cases in 42 palms of the Maya Indians of Yucatan, or 19 per cent, 

 much as in the whites, while in 118 palms of Liberian soldiers 

 this condition (including both forms of it) occured but 10 times, 

 1 1. 8 per cent. 



To summarize these results: the condition of line C, in which 

 it is either wholly absent, together with its triradius, or very 

 short and ends in a loop, is a fairly common one, apparently in all 

 races. In the negro palm, however, the marked tendency of all 

 the lines to run diagonally across the palm, from the bases of the 

 fingers to a more proximal position on the ulnar margin, which 

 results so commonly in the formula 7 -5 -5 -5, considerably lessens 

 the percentage of occurrence of this condition. 



In expressing this condition in a formula I would suggest the 

 general adoption of Loth's abbreviation, x, when the line and 

 triradius are both wanting, and that of 8, my usage hitherto, to 

 designate a very short C line, ending in a loop. 



(To be continued.) 



