360 Mr. F. Galton on Personal Identification, &c. [May 25, 



inked fingers are pressed on smooth and slightly damped paper. If a 

 plate of glass be smoked over a paraffin lamp, a beautiful negative 

 impression may be made on it by the finger, suitable for a lantern 

 transparency. The blackened finger may afterwards be made to 

 leave a positive impression on a piece of paper, that requires to 

 be varnished if it is to be rendered permanent. All this is rather dii*ty 

 work, but people do not seem to object to it ; rivahy and the hope of 

 making continually better impressions carry them on. It is trouble- 

 some to make plaster casts ; modelling-clay has been proposed ; hard 

 wax, such as dentists use, acts faiidy well ; sealing-wax is excellent if 

 the heat can be tolerated ; I have some good impressions in it. For 

 the mere study of the marks, no plan is better than that of rubbing a 

 little thick paste of chalk (*• prepared chalk ") and water or sized water 

 upon the finger. The chalk lies in the furrows, and defines them. 

 They might then be excellently photographed on an enlarged scale. 

 My own photographic apparatus is not at hand, or I should have 

 experimented in this. "\Vhen notes of the furrow-heads and of the 

 initial shape of the spiral have been made, the measurements would 

 admit of comparison with those in catalogued sets by means of a 

 numerical arrangement, or even by the mechanical selector described 

 in the last article. If a cleanly and simple way could be discovered 

 of taking durable impressions of the finger tips, there would be little 

 doubt of their being serviceable in more than one way. 



In concluding my remarks, I should say that one of the induce- 

 ments to making these inquiries into personal identification has been 

 to discover independent features suitable for hereditary investigation. 

 It has long been my hope, though utterly without direct experimental 

 corroboration thus far, that if a considerable number of variable and 

 independent features could be catalogued, it might be possible to trace 

 kinship with considerable certainty. It does not at all follow because 

 a man inherits his main features from some one ancestor, that he may 

 not also inherit a large number of minor and commonly overlooked 

 features from many ancestors. Therefore it is not improbable, and 

 worth taking pains to inquire whether each person may not carry 

 visibly about his body undeniable evidence of his parentage and near 

 kinships. 



[F. G.] 



