June 28, 1888] 



NATURE 



201 



done already by Messrs. Cunningham and Weldon under 

 the most unfavourable conditions that it cannot but be 

 anticipated that when a number of investigators are 

 working under favourable conditions on different groups, 

 but with a common object in view, results of the greatest 

 scientific and practical importance will accrue. 



The ceremony on Saturday will be interesting and im- 

 portant. Many of the leading biologists in England will 

 be present, but unfortunately the eminent President of the 

 Association, Prof. Huxley, will be absent on account of 

 ill-health, and so, unfortunately, will Prof. Moseley, one of 

 its most ardent and generous supporters. The Fish- 

 mongers' Company have added to their munificent 

 patronage of the institution by undertaking the entertain- 

 ment of the numerous guests who have been invited to 

 the ceremony ; and the Association will be launched on its 

 career of usefulness in a manner worthy of its aspirations, 

 and satisfactory in the highest degree to its energetic 

 promoters. G. C. B. 



PERSONAL IDENTIF1CA TION AND 

 DESCRIPTION. 1 



II. 



"DERSONAL characteristics exist in much more 

 ■*■ minute particulars than those described in the 

 last article. Leaving aside microscopic peculiarities 

 which are of unknown multitudes, such as might be 

 studied in the 800,000,000 specimens cut by a micro- 

 tome, say of one two-thousandth part of an inch in 

 thickness, and one tenth of an inch each way in area, 

 out of the 4000 cubic inches or so of the flesh, fat, and 

 bone of a single average human body, there are many 

 that are visible with or without the aid of a lens. 



The markings in the iris of the eye are of the 

 above kind ; they have been never adequately studied 

 except by the makers of artificial, eyes, who recognize 

 thousands of varieties of them. These markings well 

 deserve being photographed from life on an enlarged scale. 

 I shall not dwell now upon these, nor on such pecu- 

 liarities as those of hand-writing, nor on the bifurcations 

 and interlacements of the superficial veins, nor on the 

 shape and convolutions of the ear. These all admit of 

 brief approximate description by the method explained in 

 the last article — namely, by reference to the number in a 

 standard collection of the specimen that shall not differ 

 from it by more than a specified number of units of 

 unlikeness. I fully explained what a unit of unlikeness 

 was, and certain mechanical means by which a given set 

 of measures could be compared with great ease and by a 

 single movement with every set simultaneously, in a large 

 standard collection of sets of measures. 



Perhaps the most beautiful and characteristic of all 

 superficial marks are the small furrows with the inter- 

 vening ridges and their pores that are disposed in a sin- 

 gularly complex yet even order on the under surfaces of 

 the hands and the feet. I do not now speak of the 

 large wrinkles in which chiromantists delight, and which 

 may be compared to the creases in an old coat or to the 

 deep folds in the hide of a rhinoceros, but of the fine 

 lines of which the buttered fingers of children are apt to 

 stamp impressions on the margins of the books they 

 handle, that leave little to be desired on the score of 

 distinctness. These lines are found to take their origin 

 from various centres, one of which lies in the under 

 surface of each finger-tip. They proceed from their 

 several centres in spirals and whorls, and distribute them- 

 selves in beautiful patterns over the whole palmar surface. 

 A corresponding system covers the soles of the feet. 

 The same lines appear with little modification in the 

 hands and feet of monkeys. They appear to have been 



* "The substance of a Lecture given by Francis Galton, F.R.S., at the Royal 

 Institution on Friday evening, May 25. 1888. Continued from p. 177. 



carefully studied for the first time by Purkinje in 1822 ; 

 since then they have attracted the notice of many writers 

 and physiologists, the fullest and latest of whom is 

 Kollman, who has published a pamphlet upon them, 

 "Tastapparat der Hand" (Leipzig, 1883), in which their 

 physiological significance is fully discussed. Into that 

 part of the subject I am not going to enter here. It 

 has occurred independently to many persons to propose 

 finger-marks as a means of identification. In the last 

 century, Bewick in one of the vignettes in the 

 " History of Birds" gave a woodcut of his own thumb- 

 mark, which is the first clear impression that I know 

 of. Some of the latest specimens that I have seen are 

 by Mr. Gilbert Thomson, an officer of the American 

 Geological Survey, who, being in Arizona, and having to 

 make his orders for payment on a camp suttler, hit 

 upon the expedient of using his own thumb-mark to 

 serve the same purpose as the elaborate scroll engraved 

 on blank cheques — namely, to make the alteration 

 of figures written on it, impossible without detection. 

 I possess copies of two of his cheques. A San 

 Francisco photographer, Mr. Tabor, made enlarged 

 photographs of the finger-marks of Chinese, and his 

 proposal seems to have been seriously considered as a 

 means of identifying Chinese immigrants. I may say 

 that I can obtain no verification of a common state- 

 ment that the method is in actual use in the prisons of 

 China. The thumb-mark has been used there as else- 

 where in attestation of deeds, much as a man might 

 make an impression with a common seal, not his own, 

 and say, " This is my act and deed" ; but I cannot hear of 

 any elaborate system of finger-marks having ever been em- 

 ployed in China for the identification of prisoners. It was, 

 however, largely used in India, by Sir William Herschel, 

 twenty-eight years ago, when he was an officer of the 

 Bengal Civil Service. He found it to be most suc- 

 cessful in preventing personation, and in putting an 

 end to disputes about the authenticity of deeds. He 

 described his method fully in Nature, in 1880 (vol. xxiii. 

 p. 76), which should be referred to by the reader ; also a 

 paper by Mr. Faulds in the next volume. I may also 

 refer to articles in the American journal Science, 1886 

 (vol. viii. pp. 166 and 212). 



The question arises whether these finger-marks remain 

 unaltered throughout the life of the same person. In 

 reply to this, I am enabled to submit a most interesting 

 piece of evidence, which thus far is unique, through the 

 kindness of Sir Wm. Herschel. It consists of the imprints 

 of the two first fingers of his own hand, made in i860 and 

 in 1888 respectively ; that is, at periods separated by an 

 interval of twenty-eight years. I have also two inter- 

 mediate imprints, made by him in 1874 and in 1883 

 respectively. The imprints of i860 and 1888 have now 

 been photographed on an enlarged scale, direct upon the 

 engraver's block, whence Figs. 9 and 1 1 are cut ; these 

 woodcuts may therefore be relied on as very correct repre- 

 sentations. Fig. 10 contains the portion of Fig. 9 to which 

 I am about to draw attention. On first examining these and 

 other finger-marks, the eye wanders and becomes confused, 

 not knowing where to fix itself ; the points shown in Fig. 10 

 are those it should select. They are those at which each 

 new furrow makes its first appearance. The furrows 

 may originate in two principal ways, which are not always 

 clearly distinguishable : (1) the new furrow may arise in 

 the middle of a ridge ; (2) a single furrow may bifurcate 

 and form a letter Y. The distinction between (1) and (2) 

 is not greatly to be trusted, because one of the sides of 

 the ridge in case (1) may become worn, or be narrow and 

 low, and not always leave an imprint, thus converting it 

 into case (2) ; conversely case (2) may be changed into 

 (1). The position of the origin of the new furrow is, 

 however, none the less defined. I have noted the 

 furrow-heads and bifurcations of furrows in Fig. 9, and 

 shown them separately in Fig. 10. The reader will be able 



