1891.] Method of indexing Finger-Marks. 543 



patterns on the digits, is divided into two groups of three numerals 

 and two groups of two numerals, as 355, 455, 55, 35. The first group 

 355 refers to the first, second, and third fingers of the left hand ; the 

 second group 455 to the first, second, and third fingers of the right 

 hand ; the third group 55 to the thumb and fourth finger of the left 

 hand ; the fourth group 35 to the thumb and fourth finger of the 

 right hand. The index is arranged in the numerical sequence of these 

 sets of numbers as shown in fig. 2 and in Table I. 



Before translating the patterns into numerals, I find it an excellent 

 plan to draw symbolic pictures of the several patterns in the order 

 in which they appear in the impression, or in the fingers themselves, 

 as the case may be, confining myself to the limited number of symbols 

 shown in fig. 1, which have fairly well sufficed for my 289 sets or 

 2890 finger marks, as well as for many others. A little violence has 

 of course to be used now and then, in fitting some unusual pattern to 

 one of these symbols. But we a're familiar with such processes in 

 ordinary spelling, where the same letter does duty for different sounds, 

 as a in the words as, ask, ale, and all. The merits of this process 

 are many. It facilitates a leisurely revision of first determinations ; 

 it affords a pictorial record of the character of each pattern ; it 

 prevents mistakes between normal and abnormal slopes ; it prevents 

 confusion when changing the sequence of the entries from the order 

 of the impressions to that used in the index ; and, lastly, it affords 

 considerable help to a yet further subdivision of the patterns. This 

 may be inferred from the first two lines of fig. 2, which have the same 

 index numbers, but whose pictured forms differ in respect to the two 

 thumbs, and to the middle finger of the left hand. 



I will now describe the symbols in detail, and show how such small 

 difficulty as arises from rare transitional or border cases is minimised. 



The primaries in their earliest and purest form are sufficiently, 

 expressed by the symbol a, fig. 1. From this elementary type all 

 other sorts of patterns seem to be lineally descended. A fairly pure 

 form of this type is seen in b ; this is not infrequent in fingers, but I 

 have not once met with it among some thousands of thumbs. A 

 nascent whorl, still so immature as to count as a primary, is sym- 

 bolised by c ; similarly nascent loops, that should undoubtedly bo 

 counted as primaries, by d and e. When, however, the loop form is 

 more pronounced and the pattern has been accepted as a primary only 

 after reasonable hesitation as to whether it was not a loop, a dot is 

 put inside the symbol, as in / and g, to serve as a warning. In this 

 case, supposing another person to reckon the doubtful finger-mark as a 

 loop and to refer and fail to find it under that head, he would make a 

 second reference by treating it as a primary. A dot always means a 

 possibly transitional case ; thus r and s signify that they had been 

 accepted as loops after some hesitation. 



