902 REPORT — 1893. 



loads of meat are transported in large boats of moose-skin. They practise ivory 

 and wood carving, produce fire by means of a drill, cook their food in water-tight 

 wicker baskets, and formerly tattooed their persons vdth characteristic marks. 

 The dead are exposed on platforms, out of reach of the wild beasts. European 

 culture is fast obliterating the national peculiarities. 



9. On the Australian Natives. By Miss J. A. Fowlek. 



10. On a Modification of the Australian Aboriginal Weapon termed the 

 Leonile, Langeel, Bendi, or Buccan. By R. Etheridge, Jun. 



11. On an Unusual Form of Eush-basket from the Northern Territory of 

 South A%(,stralia. By R. Etheridge, Jun. 



TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19. 



The following Papers and Reports were read : — 



1. Recent Introduction into the Indian Army of the Method of Finger Prints 

 for the Identification of Recruits. By Francis Galton, F.R.S. 



Mr. Galton read copies of official letters just received by him from Surgeon 

 Lieut.-Colonel Hendley, of Jeypore, who had memorialised the authorities in India 

 in favour of affixing to the nominal roll of recruits an impression ia ink of the fore, 

 middle, and ring fingers of each recruit, offering at the same time to do so in respect 

 to those whom he himself examined for fitness to serve. In reply the Commander- 

 in-Chief ' approved of the proposal to employ prints of finger-tips as marks for 

 identification, as they are so extremely easy to make, and so useful in guarding 

 against personation.' 



Surgeon Lieut.-Colonel Ilendley has had considerable experience in taking such 

 imprints, having already sent to Mr. Galton those of the ten digits of nearly 1,000 

 persons, most of whom were prisoners in the gaol of Jeypore, 



2. On the Excavation of the Stone Circle of Lag-ny-Boiragh on the Meayll 

 Hill at Port Erin, Isle of Man. By P. M. C. Kermode, F. S.A.Scot., 

 and Professor W. A. Herdman, F.R.S. 



This was found on excavation to be a circle of eighteen graves arranged in six 

 sets of three. In each set two graves are tangentially placed, and the third is 

 radial, projecting outwards from the circle. For such a triradiate arrangement the 

 term ' tritaph ' is proposed. The sides and ends of the tangential graves are 

 usually formed of single large stones (up to ten feet in length), while the radial 

 graves (?) have two pairs of smaller upright stones at their sides, and no end stones. 

 Possibly they may have been built as passages, but remains of cinerary urns were 

 found in them, as well as in the tangential graves. About two feet from the 

 surface was the floor of the grave, composed of flat slabs of various sizes, and under 

 these slabs we found the broken urns, charcoal, fragments of charred bone, black 

 oily earth, several flint arrow-heads, scrapers, knives, &c. Near the floor of the 

 grave was also found in every case a number of rounded white quartz stones, 

 evidently brought up from the sea-shore. 



A full account of the excavation will be published shortly in the ' Trans. Biol. 

 Soc. Liverpool,' vol. viii. 



