April 



7> 



[919] 



NATURE 



125 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



{The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.] 



The Finger-print System in the Far East. 



In Henri Cordier's new edition of Sir Henry Yule's 

 •Cathay and the Way Thither" (1914) I came across 

 the following note by the editor (p. 123, vol. iii.) : — 



"With regard to the finger-print system in the Far 

 East we shall make the following remarks : In 

 Nature of October 28, 1880 (p. 605), Mr. Henry 

 Faulds, writing from Tokyo, drew the attention 

 to. the use made by Japanese of finger-prints, and 

 came to the conclusion ' that the Chinese criminals 

 from early times have been made to give the impres- 

 sions of their fingers, just as we make ours yield their 

 photographs.' In the same periodical (November 22, 

 1894, p. 77) Sir W. J. Herschel claimed to have been 

 the first to exhibit the system of finger-prints on 

 board the P. & O. s.s. Mongolian in February, 1877. 

 This system he had found in 1858 and communi- 

 cated to Mr. Gallon, who made use of it in his 

 'Finger-Prints' (1892); hence the discovery of the 

 system was ascrilsed to Sir W. Herschel in a Parlia- 

 rnentarv Blue Book. Sir W. Herschel added in his 

 letter that, to the best of his knowledge, the assertion 

 that the use of finger-marks in this way was originally 

 invented by the Chinese was wholly unproved. Sir 

 W. Herschel was entirely wrong; Mr. Faulds (ibid., 

 October 4, 1894, p. 548) protested against the claim 

 of Sir W. Herschel, and finally a Japanese gentle- 

 man, Kumagusu Minakata (ihid., December 27, 1894, 

 p. 199), proved the case for the Japanese and the 

 Chinese. None of these writers quoted the passage 

 of Rashid-ud-din, which is a peremptory proof of 

 the antiquity of the use of finger-prints by the 

 Chinese." 



The passage referred to in Rashld-ud-din is quoted 

 bv Yule on the same page in the following words : — 



" It is usual in Cathav, when any contract is entered 

 into, for the outline of the fingers of the parties to 

 be traced upon the document. For experience shows 

 that no two individuals have fingers precisely alike. 

 The hand of the contracting party is set upon the 

 back of the paper containing the deed, and lines are 

 then traced round his fingers up to the knuckles, in 

 order that if ever one of them should deny his obliga- 

 tion this tracing mav be compared with his fingers, 

 and he mav thus be convicted." (Sir H. Yule's 

 translation from the French translation of the Arabic 

 text bv Klaproth, in Journ. As. for 1833 (?), pp. 

 33.<?-:;8 and 447-70.) . , ^ 



It seems to me that the description of the process 

 by Rashid-ud-din. so accurate and explicit, can in 

 no way apply to the method of identification by finger- 

 prints.' There is no indication of a preliminary 

 blackening of the hand, or of an impress left on the 

 paper. It is definitely said that the process consists 

 in the drawing of an outline of the extremities of the 

 fingers "up to the knuckles" while the hand is set 

 on the sheet of paper 



Either Rashid-ud-din has entirelv misunderstood the 

 description given to him by Pfilad Chingsang, the 

 envoy of the Grand Khan to Tabritz, frorri whom he 

 appears to have gathered most of his information 

 regarding the Mogul Empire (ibid., p. m), or we 

 have here the description of a process of identifica- 

 tion hitherto unknown, 



Anvbodv who will take the trouble to trace the 

 outline of the outstretched lingers of the hands of 

 NO. 2581, VOL. 103] 



different individuals will easily gather how different 

 are the figures obtained in regard to the absolute 

 and relative len£?ths of the fingers, to their relative 

 distance from one another, to the angle made bv 

 the axis of the thumb with the axis of the index, 

 and so on. 



Whether these differences correspond with a dis- 

 tinctly characteristic drawing for each individual 

 person, so as to make the process a real method of 

 personal identification, I am not prepared to sav, but 

 the matter might be worthy of further investigation. 

 FiLIPPO DE FiLim. 



Rome (23), Via Urbana 167, April 3. 



Supposed Effect of Sunlight on Water-drops. 



Is it not the fact that sunshine causes a kind of 

 "greasiness" which makes drops of water roll up 

 when in contact with glass instead of spreading uni- 

 formly over the surface? I have frequently been 

 troubled with this action when endeavouring to 

 mount diatoms, and it is only recently that I have 

 observed that it comes on as soon as the sun begins 

 to shine, and that when the operation is performed in 

 dull weather the difficulty does not arise. In clearing 

 the diatoms from flocculent matter my practice is to 

 rock the material from side to side in a shallow dish, 

 dragging the diatoms into lines and rolling the dust 

 and dirt off into lumps that can be sucked up with 

 a syringe, but this process fails in sunshine owing 

 to the. diatoms floating. The evolution of a thin film 

 of gas or vapour on the surface of the glass is a 

 suggested explanation. G. H. Bryan. 



A SOUTH AFRICAN PIONEER.^ 



THE subject of this biographical volume — the 

 great hunter and pioneer of South Central 

 Africa — has left behind him a name which, as one 

 of his friends — a South African administrator — 

 has said of him, " stands for all that is straightest 

 and best in South African story." The writer of 

 this notice can only think of one close parallel to 

 him, the very similarly compacted James Chapman, 

 of mixed English, Dutch, and French parentage, 

 who preceded Selous, rivalled him as hunter, 

 and resembled him in sweetness of character, 

 transparent honesty, and love of Nature-study. 

 Chapman, however, has been far more unlucky 

 than Selous, not only in lack of Government 

 appreciation of his merits and qualities, but also 

 in never having had a biographer. Selous is at 

 least made known, to those who have the leisure 

 and inclination to read, by this work of Mr. J. G. 

 Millais — mentally a twin brother — who has en- 

 riched his " Life of Selous " by some very beautiful 

 drawings, the more beautiful in that they are SO 

 wonderfully true to actuality. 



The book opens with an account of Selous *s 

 ancestry and relations, contributed by a brother 

 and a sister. The genealogy, trailing off to 

 Scottish kings and Midland worthies, mentions the 

 French-Huguenot and Jersey origin and associa- 

 tions of the main stock, but says nothing on a 

 point that certainly interests myself. I remember 

 first meeting F. C. Selous in 1881 at the house in 

 Harley Street of Sir Alfred Garrod, the great gout 



1 "Life of Frederick Courten»y Seloui, D.S.O., Capt. asth Royal 

 Fusiliers." By J. G. Millais. Pp. xiv + 387. (London: Longmans, Green, 

 and Co., 1918.) Price 2ti. net. 



