3i6 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 325 



WASHINGTON'S SIGNATURE. 



p Dr. Persifor Frazer published in 1886. in the " Proceedings 

 of the American Philosophical Society," a paper on composite pho- 

 tography as applied to handwriting. 

 ^George Washington's signature was one of the first to sug- 







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^2^xi-«i^;^ 





gest itself for^the purpose, because many persons were familiar 

 with-it, and^there are numerous well-authenticated documents in 

 existence which bear it ; but it has proved to possess other advan- 

 tages which were not known when it was selected. As in every 

 hing else, Washington was deliberate, painstaking, and uniform in 

 his method of writing his signature, and the consequence is that it 

 makes an excellent composite for illustration. 



In writing his signature, Washington put pen to the paper five 

 times. First, he wrote the G JV'm one connected line. Second, 

 he raised his hand and made the small between the upper parts 

 of the G and JV, and the two dots which appear in all but signa- 

 ture No. 7. Third, his hand and arm were placed in position to 

 write ashing, these six letters occupying a breadth of almost ex- 

 actly i| inches in every signature except the third, 

 when they are extended to i^- inches. This is 

 about as much of the arc of a circle (of which tlie 

 centre is the elbow pivoted on the table) as one with 

 a fore-arm of average length can cause to coincide 

 with the tangent, or the straight line across the 

 paper which the lower parts of the letters follow, 

 unless unusual effort be made, and a great deal 

 more movement be given to the fingers. The g 

 ends in a curved flourish, of which the convex side 

 is turned upwards below the right centre of the 

 name. The lower loop of the g in all the signa- 

 tures and in the composite was cut off in preparing 

 the plate. Fourth, he wrote the final ton. Fifth, 

 he added the very peculiar flourish, above the right 

 centre of the name, with the object of dotting the 

 i and crossing the i at the same stroke. 



In examining the composite, the effect of these 

 various separate movements becomes manifest in 

 its strengthened portions. It is hardly possible that 

 any one, during the period of sixteen years which 

 these signatures represent, or from 1776 to 1792, 

 should have so schooled his hand to write a long 

 name that the first inch or so of the writing should 

 always occupy the same relative position to the 

 body of the signature. It would take at least that 

 much action for the hand and arm and pen to be 

 brought into normal signature-writing condition ; 

 and especially is this so when this part of the writ- 

 ing is accompanied by flourishes, as it is in the case 

 we are considering. The G W, and the little 0, 

 and the dots at the top, were the prelude, after 

 which the arm was moved into position to write 

 the main body of the signature, or the ashing. Of 

 course, from the manner of making the dots, and 

 the extremely small space they cover, their re-en- 

 forcement of each other in the composite was al- 

 most impossible, and, in fact, like other subordinate 

 characters, they disappear almost completely. This 

 latter is the part of the name which one would 

 have expected to exhibit the greatest amount of 

 uniformity, as in point of fact it does, with the ex- 

 ception of its terminal^, which shows more varia- 

 tion than any of the other letters, because at this 

 point the limit of coincidence between the tangent 

 line of the writiTig and the curve, of which the right 

 fore-arm was the radius, had been passed, and a 

 freer movement of the fingers was compensating 

 for the increasing divergence. It is likely that 

 Washington sometimes raised the hand between 

 the end of the long J and the beginning of h, but 

 he does not appear to have moved the elbow. All 

 but the second signature are .consistent with' this 

 view, and in the first, third, and fifth it is plainly 

 indicated. In the others, as in the flourish above 

 the sixth signature, the pen may not have marked. 

 The fourth separate act of the penman was the 

 formation of the tmi after a movement of the arm. 

 The breadth of the space occupied by these three 

 letters is from f to f of an inch, or considerably 

 within the range of coincidence of the curve and straight line be- 

 fore referred to ; and owing to this fact there is only a moderate 

 degree of re-enforcement of the letters in the composite, because 

 these letters might fall into the first or last parts of the 2-inch 

 space which was the limit of movement with a fixed elbow. 

 The fifth and last movement was the flourish which dots the i 

 and crosses the t by one stroke. 



