42 



NATURE 



[November 9, 1899 



large a portion of the mining machinery for our Colonies 

 from our Transatlantic cousins. 



' It seems probable that liquid air, which can now be pro- 

 duced at a very cheap rate, will prove a most valuable 

 auxiliary for cooling, and thus assist in ventilating mining 

 drifts and railway tunnels. Experiments in this direction are 

 being made in connection with the works of the Simplon 

 Tunnel, which are now in full activity. 



The problems now opening up to the civil engineer are of sur- 

 passing importance. Trunk railways through Russia, China, 

 Persia, Africa ; irrigation works to supply the wants of growing 

 populations ; harbours large enough to receive the vessels of the 

 future (already eclipsing the Great Eastern, of which the chief 

 shortcoming was that she was before her time) ; central instal- 

 lations to furnish lighting, power, traction and heating to whole 

 counties ; the extension of the telephonic communication — with 

 and without wires ; the abolition of the smoke and smell of 

 cities ; the replacement of horses by mechanical power in the 

 streets ; the increase of the speed of trains to loo miles per 

 hour ; the erection of buildings of great height where land is 

 valuable : the utilisation of waste products, especially the refuse 

 of cities ; the improvement of the water-supply ; the reclamation 

 of land ; the profitable working of deep seams of coal. 



These are but some of the branches in which engineering 

 progress in the twentieth century may be expected to develop. 

 They will call with increasing force for engineers sanguine for 

 the future, educated upon a basis of sound scientific attainment, 

 trained in experimental research, and qualified by practical ex- 

 perience — obtained, I trust, by means of that regular course of 

 pupilage under members of the Institution which, in the less 

 favourable circumstances of the past, has nevertheless produced 

 the engineers who have achieved the results to which I have 

 referred. 



ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION. 



'T'HE chief point of interest on the first day of the meeting of 

 ■*■ the Section, apart from the President's address, was a 

 discussion on the rival systems for the identification of criminals 

 of the Bertillon method and that based on finger-prints as 

 propounded by Mr. E. R. Henry and adopted in British India. 

 Mr. Henry, who is the Inspector-General of Police in the 

 Bengal Civil Service, gave a demonstration of his system. The 

 author referred to the importance of fixing human personality so 

 that no efforts made to confuse it subsequently may prove 

 availing. Of this problem the Bertillon system offered first 

 scientific solution. But experience in India has shown that the 

 " Personal Equation" error of measures predominates so much 

 as to vitiate seriously the correctness of the recorded results 

 under that system. Finger-prints, on the other hand, being 

 absolute impressions taken from body under conditions which 

 eliminate error in transcribing or recording, the " Personal 

 Equation " error is reduced to a minimum. Taking the impres- 

 sions of all ten digits occupies only a fraction of the time 

 required for measuring, while search is more exhaustive and 

 many times more rapid. This new system has been introduced 

 on a most extensive scale throughout British India, and the 

 Legislature has recognised it by passing an Act to amend the 

 law of evidence so as to make relevant the testimony of finger- 

 print experts. 



The main difficulty hitherto experienced had been that of 

 providing an effective system of classification. But this 

 difficulty has been overcome. A thin film of printer's ink is 

 spread over a piece of flat tin, and each finger in turn is pressed 

 on the film, and after being thus inked is pressed on paper 

 where a clear, sharp impression is left. Fingers are impressed 

 in their natural order of thumb, index, middle, ring, and little, 

 those of the right hand being above, and the corresponding 

 digit of the left hand below them. 



All impressions must be either arches, loops, whorls, or 

 composites — there is a great preponderance of loops and whorls. 

 In primary classification arches are included under loops, and 

 composites under whorls, and therefore, for purposes of 

 .primary classification, an impression must be either a loop or 

 whorl. The digits are taken in the following pairs: (i) 

 right thumb and right index ; (2) right middle and right ring ; 

 .(3) right little and left thumb; (4) left index and left middle; 



NO. 1567, VOL. 61] 



(5) left ring and left little finger. Taking first pair and denoting 

 loop by L and whorl by W, we get the following arrangements. 

 Right thumb may be L and right index L ; right thumb may be 

 L and right index W ; right thumb may be W and right index 

 L ; and right thumb may be W and right index W. So there 

 are four, and not more than four, arrangements possible. 

 Similarly, in second pair, there are four such arrangements, 

 which, taken with these of the first pair, yield 16 combinations ; 

 taking the third pair we get 64 combinations, and by adding 

 the fourth and fifth pairs, this number rises to 256 and 1024. 

 Now 1024 equals 32 squared ; in other words, a cabinet con- 

 taining 32 sets of 32 pigeon-holes arranged vertically would 

 provide all the locations required. A diagram was shown how 

 this works in practice. But the following rule is very simple. 

 The first of each pair is shown as numerator, the second of 

 each pair as denominator, yielding for the five sets of pairs 



L W L W L 

 some such formula as the following = ttt 5 y > t- 5 777 5 tjFt- ^ 



whorl in the first pair counts 16, in the second pair 8, in the 

 third 4, in the fourth 2, in the fifth i. No numerical value is 

 given to a loop. Substituting these values in the formula we 

 get A ; t; f; I; i=it- Add l to both numerator and 

 denominator and invert the fraction which becomes \\, and this 

 is the primary classification number, and represents that the 

 card containing these impressions will be found on the twentieth 

 pigeon-hole of the eleventh vertical row. The secondary 

 classification required to break up accumulations is equally 

 simple, and the search formula or legend for each card can be 

 prepared rapidly without any key and brings search down to 

 groups of very small volume. 



Naturally Dr. Garson argued in support of the French system 

 as taught by him to the English police. He had previously 

 read a paper on the " Personal equation in anthropometry," and 

 had fully described the well-known Bertillon system ; he 

 admitted there was always a margin of uncertainty in measure- 

 ments, but denied that it need be so large as Mr. Henry 

 asserted. He expressed regret that the Indian Government 

 had abandoned the Bertillon system for one based solely on 

 finger-prints. 



A paper, also illustrated by lantern slides, was read by Francis 

 Galton on "Finger-prints of young children," in which he 

 demonstrated that clear prints of all ten fingers of a baby would 

 suffice for after-identification by an expert, but by an expert only. 

 Although new ridges may appear in infantile life the type of each 

 pattern persists all through life, and is never doubtful to a 

 practised eye. 



The whole of Friday was devoted to samples of the work 

 accomplished by the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits and 

 New Guinea. Dr. A. C. Haddon, the organiser and leader of 

 the expedition, led off with a short report on the work done 

 {cf. Nature vol. Ix. p. 413), and illustrated with lantern slides 

 the physical character of the inhabitants. A communication on 

 the linguistic results of the expedition, by Mr. Sidney H. Ray, 

 was laid before the Section. 



The language of the Eastern tribe of the Straits bears no 

 resemblance to the Melanesian, and but little to the Australian 

 group of languages, while that of the Western tribe is decidedly 

 of the Australian type. Most of the coast languages of the 

 Port Moresby and Hood Bay districts are very closely akin to the 

 languages of the Melanesian Islands, except some, such as the 

 Koitapu, Koiari and Cloudy Bay dialects, which approach the 

 Australian type, but has nothing in common with the Mela- 

 nesian. Mr. C. S. Myers gave an interesting paper on savage 

 music, based on his observations in Murray Island and Sarawak. 

 As our modern orchestra admits the noises of drums and 

 cymbals, and our harmony allows chords which in a more 

 classical period were inadmissible, we, in our inquiry into past 

 and primitive music will not refuse to consider certain sounds as 

 musical even though they be noisy. Sympathy should be our 

 sole test of music. In savage life the songs of a tribe are its 

 chief heritage. Certain songs recorded on the phonograph in 

 Murray Island, Torres Straits, are now obsolete, and will prob- 

 ably die out with the old men. Neither there nor in Borneo 

 could any trace of the notes of birds be found in the music. 

 Of the two fundamentally distinct elements in music, rhythm 

 and melody, the one has its basis in bodily movement, the other 

 in the emotional recitative. In Murray Island the drum is 

 beaten to accentuate the words of the old songs, the music being 

 singularly lacking in rhythm ; among the North American 

 Indians, on the other hand, rhythm is well developed. The 



