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OCR Rendition - approximate
4 FINGER PRINTS CHAP. the finger and the document was supposed to be of mysterious efficacy : ceremonial, as a formal act whose due performance in the presence of others could be attested. A few scattered instances are mentioned of persons who had made finger prints with enough care to show their lineations, and who had studied them ; some few of these had used them as signatures. Attention is especially drawn to Sir William Herschel, who brought the method of finger prints into regular official employment when he was " Collector " or chief administrator of the Hooghly district in Bengal, and my large indebtedness to him is expressed in this chapter and in other places. In the third chapter various methods of making good prints from the fingers are described at length, and more especially that which I have now adopted on a somewhat large scale, at my anthropometric laboratory, which, through the kindness of the authorities of South Kensington, is at present lodged in the galleries of their Science Collections. There, the ten digits of both hands of all the persons who come to be measured, are impressed with clearness and rapidity, and a very large collection of prints is steadily accumulating, each set being, as we shall see, a sign-manual that differentiates the person who made it, throughout the whole of his life, from all the rest of mankind. Descriptions are also given of various methods of enlarging a finger print to a convenient size, when it is desired to examine it closely. Photography is the readiest of all ; on the other hand the prism (as in
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