428 



Palms and Soles 



likely that areas in which the ridges run evenly and parallel must still 

 have the same morphological value as though there were a bend or 

 turn in one or more of the ridges and that the palms and soles should 

 be studied, not by searching for patterns, hut hy devising some accurate 

 and scientific method of determining the boundaries of the areas correspond- 

 ing morphologically to those in which the patterns had been located in the 

 ancestral form. 





OH-pai. 



Fig. 3. — Right hand. Print and interpretation. Palmar areas divided. 



With this end in view a comparative study was first made of several 

 palms and a starting point for such a system was found in the discovery 

 of four constant points, or " triangular plots " similar to those so named 

 by Galton and used as the guiding points in his study of the finger-tips 

 and in his method of interpretation. These four points, for which I 

 prefer the name triradii to the more cumbersome term of Galton, are 

 seen in figures 1 and 2, and appear in the majority of hands a short way 



