i'ALM AM) ISULE IMPRESSIONS. 409 



vdv]\ set of prints may be siiiiitly iiuiiihcrcd, and plaeed consecutively 

 in shallow drawers, with 50-lOU in a drawer, while the classification 

 may be made by means of a card catalogue, which would contain a 

 numbered card for every individual, arranged in accordance with the 

 system just described. I have arranged my own print collection upon 

 this latter system, the prints being numbered and arranged consecu- 

 tively in the order taken, while the corresponding cards are classified 

 in accordance with the formulse, those of the left hands taken first, 

 and subdivided by those of the right. 



As for the space required for a collection. If the prints are filed 

 in shallow drawers or slides holding 50 sets each, a collection of 100,000 

 sets could be accommodated in 2,000 drawers; and allowing a frontage 

 of lGx3 inches for each drawer with its surroundings, these would 

 make a cabinet 6 feet high and composed of 56 perpendicular stacks 

 which together would occupy a wall length of 75 feet. An 18-drawer 

 card index with a capacity of more than 20,000 3 x 5-inch cards, as 

 taken from a recent catalogue of office furniture, is 44 inches wide and 

 14 in height, and the five necessary to accompany the collection in 

 question would form a single stack 6 feet high and 44 inches wide, 

 which will add approximately four feet to the seventy-five given above. 

 Thus a room having 80 feet of wall, linear measure, or a smaller one 

 with a double stack running through the center, would be amply suffi- 

 cient for the entire collection, properly arranged. 



This calculation appears to answer in the affirmative the question 

 of the practicality of keeping palm and sole records of all citizens as 

 advocated in my previous article. M. Bertillon has pointed out the 

 numerous cases in civil life in which one's identity is in peril, and 

 looks forward to a future in which some record, based upon physical 

 characters, will be made of every citizen, but the trouble and incon- 

 venience attending his own system of measurements and the fact that 

 they are applicable during adult life alone, would leave them hardly to 

 be considered for such a purpose. 



The palm and sole system, which I originally presented as an ex- 

 tension of the system of Mr. Galton, appears to supply the need in this 

 respect, as the records are easily taken, unchanged from birth to death, 

 quickly compared, either with the hands and feet themselves or with 

 other prints, and capable of brief characterization and of accurate 

 classification by means of simple formulae, to all of which may be 

 added, as their most important advantage, that of absolute certainty, 

 while the Bertillon measurements afford no more than a strong prob- 

 ability. 



Prints could be taken in each township or municipality, and filed 

 away in any convenient spot, perhaps the court house of each county 



