390 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



urements and in recording and classifying the same, as compared with 

 the printing and reading required by either the Galton system or by 

 the one advocated in the present paper. A careful test of this has not 

 yet been made, but when we consider the number of single acts involved 

 in the making of the records required by each system, the conclusion 

 is obvious. In identifying an individual by means of a previous record, 

 the Bertillon system demands a complete remeasurement, while by the 

 palm and sole system a mere glance at a single palm is often sufficient 

 to establish the identity or the reverse. Ordinarily the difference of 

 time may not be great, but in the stress of modern competition a 

 slight disadvantage in this particular may be regarded as a relative 

 defect. 



5. A more serious defect, wliich is also brought out by comparison, 

 is that the certainty of a Bertillon determination is not absolute, while 

 that of a system which involves either the finger tips or any other con- 

 siderable portion of the epidermic ridges of hand or foot is beyond 

 question. This has been thoroughly proved statistically by Galton and 

 morphologically and embryologically by a series of recent investiga- 

 tions in my laboratory.* The proof afforded by the study of duplicate 

 or 'identical' twins, where the resemblance, though gi'eater than it can 

 be in any other two persons, is still not absolute, affords farther evi- 

 dence of the same.f Galton says that a proved identity of finger 

 prints "far transcends in trustworthiness any other evidence from any 

 number of ordinary anthropometric data. By itself it is amply suffi- 

 cient to convict. Bertillonage {i. e., the system of Bertillon) can 

 rarely supply more than grounds for very strong suspicion ; the method 

 of finger prints affords certainty. "J 



Although in the original system devised liy him Bertillon confined 

 his attention mainly to anthropometric measurements and rejected all 

 use of epidermic marking of hand or foot as impracticable§ in his 

 capacity as chief of the Bureau of Identification and with the evident 



* A report of these investigations will shortly be published. See note, p. 396. 



t See Am. Journal of Avat., Vol. 1, No. 4, November, 1902. 



f 'Finger Prints,' Macmillan. 1892, pp. 107-108. 



§ "Ainsi la solution du problfeme de I'identilication judiciaire consistait 

 moins dans la recherche de nouveaux elements caracteristiques de I'individualit^ 

 que dans la decouverte d'un moyen de classification. Certes, je ne conteste 

 pas, ]>our no pnrler que du procode chinois, que les arabesques filigran^es que 

 pre.sente repidcnue de la face antciieurc du pouce ne soiont a la fois fixes chez 

 le meme sujet et extraordinairement variables d"un sujct a \m autre; et que 

 chaque individu ne poss&de la une espfece de sceau original et hien personnel. 

 INlalhoureuscnient il est tout aussi indeniable, nialgri? les reclicrchcs ingcnieuses 

 poursuivics par M. Francis Galton, en Anglcterre, que ces dessins ne presentent 

 pas par eux-meme des ^I6raents de variabilit6 assez tranches pour servir de 

 base a un icpcrtoire de plusieurs centaincs de niille cas." Bertillon. ' Instruc- 

 tions Signal^tiqucs,' IS!):^, Iiili'dduclion. 



