Personal Identification and Description 205 



in that particular group are curiously monotonous in their general aspect and size, the 

 conspicuous characteristics of b, q and v appearing rarely, and being therefore of little service 

 in differentiation ; neither is any method of counting ridges of value, for their numbers are 

 much alike. But when the whorls are looked at carefully, and their contours followed a short 

 way with a pointer, the variety in their r and s characteristics becomes distinctive. It may be 

 pressed into the service of sub-classification, the sets admitting of being arranged in the order 

 of the number of r's that they severally contain, irrespective of the fingers on which those r's 

 appear." (pp. 95-6.) 



A point which I think would be of value, but has not, I think, been noted 

 by Galton, is the character of the whorl or spiral. Starting from the pole of 

 the spiral does it correspond to a right or left-handed screw motion, i.e. is 

 the rotation clockwise or counter-clockwise ? It appears to me that these two 

 types occur in not such unequal numbers, and at once divide whorls into two 

 classes. Of course a clockwise or right-handed screw whorl on the actual 

 finger is reversed on the imprint, but we may confine our classification to the 

 imprints. 



A further classification which might also be made in the case of simple 

 spirals — and which easily admits of four classes — is the direction of the whorl 

 or spiral at its pole or terminal. Is this direction generally upwards or 

 downwards, generally radial or ulnar? There would be some doubt as to 

 the 45° slopes, but as a rule the general polar slope is fairly obvious. I think 

 there is thus actually small difficulty in breaking up the whorls for the 

 purposes of indexing. 



Galton makes only one division of arches in his Primary Classification, 

 namely into Plain and Tented Arches (see our Fig. 37). The symbols k, r, u, 

 or v may, however, be attached in the Secondary Classification. 



We have already seen that Galton uses counting of ridges on the fore- 

 finger and if necessary on the middle finger in order to break up the loop 

 groups. But he admits that this is scarcely adequate in itself to deal with 

 an index of 3000 sets or persons. Accordingly he uses other suffixes to dif- 

 ferentiate loops by their cores. He considers the following three types will 

 suffice: 



Two Forms of Arch /ro delfe) 



Three Forms of Loop 



Cflht-fl 



> , ' 



Plain Arck Tented Arck i f c 



Fig. 37. Fig. 38. Classification of Cores of Loops. 



i is a central rod, whose head stands quite distinct and separate from the 

 ridge curving round it. Galton says there is no need to fear a col, if there be 

 the distance of a furrow between central rod and staple. / covers the cases 

 in which the central rod forks whether it reaches the staple or not ; it may 



