H. Waite 
422a 
5. Distribution of Glasses of Finger-Prints. A preliminary survey of the prints 
brings to light a considerable clustering together of prints of the same kind. 
Thus, each of 241 sets contains prints of one class only ; each of 329 sets has nine 
prints of one class, and each of 19-t sets contains eight out of the ten prints of one 
class; that is, each of 764 sets, or over 38 %,has at least eight prints of one class, 
the large majority of these being loops. Again, each of 892 sets contains prints of 
two classes only, so that each of 1133 sets — or nearly 57 of tire whole — has 
representatives of not more than two of the four classes. On the other hand all 
four classes appear in only 95 sets, while the number of single bands, each of 
which contains at least one of every class, is only 23. 
For the calculations which follow it has been found advisable to subdivide the 
loops into two classes, Small Loops and Large Loops (p. 423). Considering these 
as separate classes, giving five types in all, the distribution of numbers of types 
for the two hands is shown in the following Table : 
TABLE 1. 
Distribution of Types in Right and Left Hands. 
Number of Types in Right Hand. 
OJ CD 
1^ 
1 
2 
3 
5 
Totals 
1 
37 
84 
47 
6 
174 
2 
65 
465 
360 
61 
4 
955 
3 
15 
256 
347 
96 
2 
716 
1 
36 
83 
30 
1 
151 
5 
1 
1 
4 
Totals 
118 
842 
839 
194 
7 
2000 
In this Table, taking as origin the cell (3, 2) containing 360 types, we have the 
following results : 
Mean of Left Hand Types, "428 
<Ty, -7628 
Mean of Right Hand Types, - -435 
a^, -7608. 
We thus find the correlation coefficient (r) to be '281 + '014. 
The contingency coefficient (c), corrected for the number of cells, is •289. Hence 
we conclude that there is a distinct, though not very great tendency towards 
equality in the number of types in the two hands of an individual. It appears, 
however, that the divergence is rather greater in the right than in the left hand. 
The question now arises whether the difiference in divergence in the two hands 
for the samples taken is significant. I have tested this by the method proposed by 
Professor Karl Pearson*. 
* " On the Probability that Two Independent Distributions of Frequency are really Samples from the 
same Population," by Karl Pearson, F.R.S., Biometrika, Vol. viii, pp. 250 — 254, July, 1911. 
54—2 
