BY HENRY FAULDS L.R.F.P. & S. M.R. Archæol. Inst. F.R. Anthrop. Inst. , M. Sociol. Soc. HALIFAX MILNER & COMPANY RAGLAN WORKS HALIFAX MILNER & COMPANY RAGLAN WORKS...

Dactylography deals with what is of scientific interest and practical value in regard to the lineations in the skin on the fingers and toes, or rather on the hands and feet of men, monkeys, and allied tribes, which lineations form patterns of great variety and persistence. The Greeks used the term δάκτυλος του̑ ποδός ( daktylos tou podos , finger of the foot) for a toe; and the toes are of almost as much interest to the dactylographer as the fingers, and present similar patterns for study. In pr

Section of Skin, showing Sweat-Glands, Ducts and Pores The front or palmar surface of human hands, and the corresponding solar or plantar surface of the feet, are marked with alternate ridges and furrows, lying for the most in nearly parallel rows, but often again at certain points on palm or sole, curving, splitting, twisting, or joining to form patterns of much intricacy. The ridges, called technically rugæ (sing. ruga ), are punctuated at very frequent intervals with small openings, which are

Before reading this chapter, let the reader carefully examine the clear lineations shown so well in the photographic picture of the Zebra’s stripes, opposite. They will be found to resemble very closely the lineations on the skin of human fingers, as printed when enlarged by photography, forming very similar patterns. Similar linings occur in the hide of the tiger. Grevy’s Zebra. —Showing Lineations like Finger-Print Patterns. [Photo. Pictorial Agency] Where two lines, beginning as parallels, cu

In this chapter I propose to bring together a few important points of a biological character, which are so vital that even in so curtailed a discussion they cannot be ignored. We shall also glance—it must literally be the merest glance—at the problem of man’s genetic descent, in so far as it begins now to be illumined, however faintly, by a comparative study of finger-prints. Comparatively little of a final character has as yet been achieved, but there are now not a few active and intelligent ob

There are important points connected, with the printing of finger-patterns, especially for legal investigation, which come now to be considered. A human finger, as we have seen, is not, for printing purposes, just like a lithographic stone, a box-wood engraving, or a plate of zinc, steel, or copper. In ordinary printing, especially of high-class and delicate engravings, the quality and fluency of ink, the smoothness of surface and hygrometric conditions of paper—due sometimes to local atmosphere

A human finger, in ordinary circumstances, may preserve, unimpaired, not only its general pattern of lineations, sometimes very intricate, during its owner’s lifetime, but the minutest details also may be discerned after thirty or forty years, quite unchanged as elements of a pattern, and very likely for a longer period, though scientific observation has not extended much beyond that limit. Long immersion, after death, in water, till the skin is quite sodden, does not readily destroy, does not e

Having secured some technical knowledge of how to print, and how to read old finger-prints correctly and with confidence when they turn up again in experience, we are faced now with the problem of how to classify and arrange them for secure preservation and prompt and easy reference, whatever may be our object. In natural history, in biological facts generally, it is not always easy to define the objects of study strictly, so as to classify them in a practical way. Dealing, however, with printed

Till quite recently the method of identifying prisoners was that of personal recognition, often very admirably carried out. One may readily conceive that a criminal officer, a Bow Street runner of the old school, or a modern detective, might acquire great acuteness in perceiving points of individual character in face, form, gait, speech, and manner; and during the period of arrest, trial, and imprisonment there were many opportunities of observing notable offenders. Nor is such a power to be des

Accidentals.  Nondescript patterns in the class composites. Anthropoid.  Of the great man-like apes (gorilla, orangutan, and chimpanzee). Anthropometric.  Bodily measurements. Anthropometry.  Science of accurate bodily measurements. Arch.  A curved set of lineations, without backward turn; a bow. Bertillonage.  Alphonse Bertillon’s anthropometric methods. Bifurcation.  Fork-like splitting into two branches. Blur.  A dull, smudgy imprint. Bow.  A curved lineation like a bow. Bulb.  The pad of a f

Asquith’s Committee. —[Blue Book.] “Identification of Habitual Criminals,” 1894. Clemens, S. L. (Mark Twain.).—“Pudd’nhead Wilson” A story illustrating the principles of Finger-Print Identification. Darwin, Charles. —“Origin of Species,” 1859; “Descent of Man,” 1871. Devon, James. —“The Criminal and the Community,” 1912. “ Encyclopædia Britannica. ”—“Finger Prints,” etc., 1911. Faulds, Henry. —“On the Skin-furrows of the hands,” ( Nature , chap. xxii., p. 605), 1880; “Dactyloscopy” (St. Thomas’s