Personal Identification and Description 199 



pattern more or less hooked. C. J. E. was born in 1870 and measured when 

 24 years old. His finger-prints will be found under register number 6547. 

 His anthropometric formula is 89w = ivlwww, or he is of medium head breadth, 

 but large in all his other measurements. His finger-print formula is 



U5R5,55 = ULL, RLL, LL, LL, 



or he belongs to the class of which all the ten prints are loops. We are only- 

 told that the right forefinger has an ulnar and the left a radial loop. The 

 number of ridges on the right forefinger is 6, and on the right middle finger 

 16. The left forefinger with its radial loop has only two ridges and might 

 also be called an arch (a) ; the left ring finger loop has a racquet-shaped core. 

 Finally G. A., born in 1839 and measured at 55 years of age, has for 

 register number 6578. His anthropometric formula is i7a — lawaa, or he is 

 small in head breadth, left cubit and left middle finger, medium in head length 

 and large in facial breadth (bizygomatic). His finger-print formula is 



W6 W6, 88= WLW, WLW, WL, WL. 



Thus his thumbs are whorls and both his little fingers loops; both his fore- 

 fingers are whorls with well-defined rings round the core ; his right middle 

 finger is a loop invaded by a blunt system of ridges and the same is true for 

 the left middle finger, the print of which might, however, be mistaken for a 

 whorl; there is no characterisation for either ring finger beyond the statement 

 that both are whorls. 



It is clear that Galton was at this date feeling his way up to a more com- 

 plete secondary classification. Dropping the anthropometric data — although 

 be it remembered they are useful when the police need to give the public some 

 rough particulars of a criminal — there is ample space for a full 10-digit print 

 formula in the first line, which would get much more differentiation into the 

 uncharacterised L's and W's. Something of this was introduced by Galton 

 into his Finger- Print Directories of the following year, and we shall see that 

 it can be easily extended. We note that for the all-loops formulae he introduces 

 ridge counting on fore and middle fingers, and this was the method adopted 

 by Henry from Galton, although he then proceeded for ridge frequency to 

 follow Bertillon in using only broad categories. Galton admits that this index 

 was only experimental, but its arrangement is suggestive especially in the 

 cases where anthropometric measurements are also desirable. It has the 

 advantage that as the frequency under any formula increases, it is always 

 feasible to add more detailed secondary classification in the third line. For 

 example, it would be at once feasible in the last illustration to break up the 

 six whorls into those fed radially, ulnarly or from both sides, and again into 

 right-handed and left-handed screw classes. 



The Final Work on Indexing Finger- Prints. Galton's third volume on the 

 subject of finger prints appeared in 1895 ; it is entitled Finger Print Directories, 

 and is gracefully dedicated to Sir William J. Herschel*. The main purpose 



* " I do myself the pleasure of dedicating this book to you, in recognition of your initiative 

 in employing finger-prints in official signatures, nearly forty years ago, and in grateful 

 remembrance of the invaluable help you freely gave me when I began to study them." Here, 

 as elsewhere, Galton very fully acknowledges his indebtedness to Herschel's aid. 



