128 TKE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Galton, whose study of the subject has ah^eady extended over seven years, 

 calculates that there is only one chance in 64,000,000,000 of the pattern on 

 any human finger being identical with that on any other. If the patterns 

 of three or four fingers (or the prints from them in printer's ink) be com- 

 pared, all possibility of error is eliminated, while with a set of prints from 

 the whole ten fingei'S assurance is made doubly and trebly sure. Mr. Gal- 

 ton has published on various phases of this subject from time to time, and 

 in his latest book* deals with methods of handling large collections of 

 prints so that reference to them may be simple and rapid. It appears that, 

 with a few border-line exceptions, every print may be classified as a loop, 

 a whorl, or an arch. A loop on the forefinger may open toward the ulnar 

 (little finger) or radial (thumb) side of the hand. Loops on other fingers 

 almost always open toward the ulnar side. Where these particulars are 

 not sufiicient, minor points, such as the number of ridges from the nucleus 

 to the outside of a loop, and breaks, junctions, or forks of the lines, etc., 

 which an expert can point out to any intelligent person, will be found con- 

 clusive. Mr. Galton presents an abstract of the report of a British depart- 

 mental committee which fully indorses his system, recommending, how- 

 ever, for registering and identifying habitual criminals that a part of the 

 French system of physical measurements be combined with it. The vol- 

 ume contains a specimen directory of three hundred sets of prints and 

 plates in which nearly two hundred impressions are shown. Mr. Galton 

 suggests that fljnger prints could be employed also for identifying desertei-s 

 from the army and detecting impersonators of deceased pensioners. This 

 by no means exhausts their possibilities. What an expensive and trouble- 

 some litigation could have been saved if a set of finger prints of the real 

 Tichborne heir had been on file when the "claimant " appeared! An im- 

 portant class of life-insurance frauds would be prevented if the companies 

 should require the taking of finger prints as a part of their physical exami- 

 nation, and the abortive attempt of the United States Government to pre- 

 vent the personation by Chinese immigrants of fellow-countrymen who had 

 been in the United States and gone home could be made effectual by the 

 same means. Mr. Galton has secured abundant official recognition of his 

 system, and the idea is being brought into wide popular cognizance by Mark 

 Twain's story, cited above, and its dramatization. 



No happier choice of a writer to tell The Story of the Plants could have 

 been made than Grant Allen.-\ He knows what to tell in order to give his 

 readers a satisfactory bird's-eye view of the subject, he has a most attrac- 

 tive way of telling it, and, above all, he knows what to leave untold. His 

 story is not a string of definitions nor an annotated catalog-ue of genera 

 and species. It tells how plants obtain their food, how they grow, rest, and 

 perpetuate themselves, and what means they take to overcome obstacles 

 and protect themselves from dangers. Something is told also about the 

 way plants lived before there was any one to describe them, and how they 

 came to differ from one another so much as they now do. Although it is 

 thus seen that the physiology of plants is given chief prominence, consid- 

 erable is told as to their anatomy. Thus, when showing that plants eat 



* Finger-print Directories. By Francis Galton, F. K. S. London and New York : Macmillan & 

 Co. Pp. 123, 8vo. Price, $2 (5s.)- 



t The Story of the Plants. By Grant Allen. The Library of Useful Stories. Illustrated. New 

 York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 213, IGmo. Price, 40 cents. London : George Newnes, Ltd. 



