Personal Identification and Description 143 



I think, however, Galton had forgotten the date at which his attention 

 was first drawn to finger-prints. He appears to have been collecting data 

 before his lecture in 1888. But as early as 1880 Dr Faulds wrote a letter 

 (February 16th) from Japan to Charles Darwin mentioning that the topic 

 might have interest for him. The letter suggested that there were racial 

 differences in finger-prints and enclosed two prints of palms of hands and of 

 the five fingers. Darwin, strangely for him, rather overlooked the possible 

 importance of the topic ; he was clearly busy and worried*. He forwarded 

 the letter to Galton mentioning that it might have interest for anthropo- 

 logists, and suggesting it had better be dealt with by the Anthropological 

 Institute. Galton actually did present the letter to that Institute, and its 

 officials appear to have then pigeon-holed it. Faulds' and Darwin's letters 

 were unearthed many years later (April, 1894), after Galton had published 

 his books, and returned by A. E. Peek to Galton. These letters I found in 

 the Galtoniana. 



Before this discovery I had no knowledge that Dr Faulds had written to 

 Darwin in 1880, but it is clear that Galton sent the letter as suggested by 

 Darwin to the Anthropological Institute. It cannot be said that any injustice 

 was thus done either by Darwin or Galton. No busy scientist is bound to pay 

 attention to the innumerable suggestions that may be made to him. Further, 

 twenty years earlier, 1858, Sir William Herschel was using finger-prints for 

 practical executive purposes in India, and lastly what is more to the point 

 Dr Faulds sent much the same communication slightly later to Nature where 

 it was printed on October 28, 1880 1, i.e. in the year of his letter to Darwin, 

 and called forth a response from Sir William Herschel stating what he had 

 himself achieved J. Galton refers to both letters not only in his Royal 

 Institution lecture of 1888, but also in his Finger Prints. Before Galton 

 issued his epoch-making papers of 1891, and his three books 1892 to 1895, 

 no really substantial work had been published on finger-prints, since 

 Purkenje's. A comparison of Galton's results with the two letters in Nature 

 of 1880 will suffice to indicate how idle it is to attempt to belittle his claims. 



* Darwin was failing in health in 1880 and correspondence with strangers had become 

 a burden to him. See Life and Letters, Vol. in, p. 355 et seq. 



f Vol. xxii, p. 605. It should be noticed that Dr Faulds states that he commenced his study 

 of the "skin furrows of the hand" in the previous year, but he yet speaks of "the for-ever-un- 

 changeable finger furrows of important criminals," and again in his letter to Darwin he states 

 that photographs may grow unlike the original, but never the rugae. In other words he begs 

 the question of permanence. At the same time he shows that he has ideas of the wide possible 

 usefulness of the finger-print. He says that he had been studying the papillary ridges in 

 monkeys, but appears to have overlooked the elaborate comparisons of these ridges among all 

 kinds of primates including man in the paper by Alix: "Recherches sur la disposition des lignes 

 papillaires de la main et du pied," Annates des sciences naturelles (Zoologie), T. vm, pp. 295-362, 

 T. ix, pp. 5-42 and corrections T. x, p. 374. The portion in T. ix contains excellent engravings 

 of the hands and feet ridges of primates. Alix enlarges on the great variety of the finger-prints 

 in man, and figures "double vortex," "loop" (Amande), "racket," "spiral," "spiral within circle" 

 and simple "circle." In other words he was reaching and figuring a classification to enable him 

 to compare man with other primates. 



J Nature, Nov. 25, 1880, Vol. xxm, p. 76. Herschel recorded a twenty-two years' use of 

 finger-prints and gives some evidence of their permanence. 



