1-J PROCKKDIXGS OF THE ANATOMICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



in conjunction with F. H. Collins. The frequency with which some 

 peculiar pattern was found to characterise members of the same 

 family convinced him of the reality of an hereditary tendency. 



Taking a hundred to be the possible number of resemblances, 

 Gallon found that there were about 10 per cent, of these occurring in 

 the prints he examined. This number is certainly enough to prove 

 the influence of inheritance, but it is too small to show that the 

 patterns are themselves directly inherited. Professor Brooks in dis- 

 cussing this point says : " Does it not seem rather that the patterns 

 are indirectly influenced by some other inherited character, such, per- 

 haps, as the ratio in the embryo between the growth of the ball of the 

 finger and that of nail ". It may be that the resemblances in finger- 

 prints of members of the same family are due to acquired characters 

 and not to actual inheritance. 



Another point which, for want of sufficient data, is still not quite 

 decided, is the question of the persistence of the patterns throughout 

 life. Galton considers that from birth to death finger-prints never 

 change. He bases his belief on two sets of data ; first, on eight so- 

 called " Hoogli prints " taken in India, first in 1878 and again in 

 1892, that is, after a lapse of fourteen years ; second, in his own 

 laboratory are ten double sets of finger-prints, the interval between 

 the first and second impressions varying from nine to thirty-one years. 

 In all cases the prints are exactly similar, with one slight exception, 

 where two ridges in a child of two and half years became one ridge 

 in a boy of fifteen years. Cuts and scars also seem to be permanent, 

 but burns only temporarily destroy the ridges. 



In the laboratory here, no double records have as yet been ob- 

 tained ; but some ten or fifteen years hence, when the students of 

 to-day come back to revisit their Alntti Mater, it would be interesting 

 if they remembered to take a second record of their finger-prints, and 

 >o furnish material to prove that the patterns are permanent. 



