84 Mr. W. W. Rouse Ball [March 12, 



interest ; here, boo, before the present century, no description was 



available which would enable anyone previously ignorant of the 

 Cradle to make it. Outside Britain, in the nineteenth century it 

 was known in Northern Europe, and travellers in Victorian times 

 mention it as practised in Korea. China, and the Asiatic Isles. 



We may say that before 1900 the whole matter of string 

 figures was regarded as a pastime of children and savages, hardly 

 worth mention and not worth consideration. To-day, when 

 serious attention is given to folk-lore and the histories of 

 grames, such things are looked at from a different stand-point. 

 The study of string figures came about in this way. In 1898 

 Eaddon organised an anthropological expedition to the Torres 

 Straits, and among other things brought back information about 

 string patterns there current, together with some thirty examples. 

 Some of these designs were made to the chanting of sing-songs, some 

 were connected with tribal stories, and some were amusements, but 

 everything suggested that here was a custom worth investigation. 



This conclusion showed the need of having an unambiguous 

 nomenclature which would allow anyone acquainted with it to 

 describe a string figure in such a way as to permit of its reproduction 

 by an intelligent reader. The terms introduced are taken from 

 anatomy, and there is nothing recondite about them, but it is 

 necessary to know them if you want to understand recent writers on 

 the subject. Here they are : — 



The part of a string which lies across the palm of the hand is 

 described as palmar, the part lying across the back of the hand as 

 dorsal. 



Anything on the thumb side of the hand is called radial, anything 

 on the little-finger side is called ulnar. Since a string passing round 

 a finger or fingers forms a loop, each such loop is composed of a 

 radial string, and an ulnar string. 



Of two strings or loops on the same finger, the one nearer the 

 palm of the hand is called proximal, and the one nearer the finger tip 

 is called distal. 



These six adjectives, palmar and dorsal, radial and ulnar, proximal 

 and distal, together with the names of the parts of the hands, fingers, 

 wrists, etc., enable us to state exactly the relative place of every 

 string in a figure held on the hands. 



This nomenclature is framed so as to define the position of strings 

 on a hand by reference to the hand, and not by terms like near 

 and far, lower and upper, which may mean quite different things 

 according as to how it is held. At the same time, if the hands are 

 held upright and with the palms facing each other, which I regard 

 as their normal position, we may conveniently use near and far 

 instead of radial and ulnar, and lower and upper instead of proximal 

 and distal. It is well however to make it an absolute rule that 

 these e very-day words are used only when the hands are in their 

 normal position. 



