| ||||||
OCR Rendition - approximate
2 6 FINGER PRINTS CHAP. 221.) A drawing of one of these is given in Plate 1, Fig. 1. The European practitioners of palmistry and cheiromancy do not seem to have paid particular attention to the ridges with which we are concerned. A correspondent, of the American Journal Science, viii. 166, states, however, that the Chinese class the striae at the ends of the fingers into "pots" when arranged in a coil, and into "hooks." They are also regarded by the cheiromantists in Japan. A curious account has reached me of negroes in the United States who, laying great stress on the,possession of finger prints in wax or dough for witchcraft purposes, are also said to examine their striae. Leaving Purken j e to be spoken of in a later chapter, because he deals chiefly with classification, the first well-known person who appears to have studied the lineations of the ridges as a means of identification, was Bewick, who made an impression of his own thumb on a block of wood and engraved it, as well as an impression of a finger. They were used as fanciful designs for his illustrated books. Occasional instances of careful study may also be noted, such as that of Mr. Fauld (Nature, xxii. p. 605, Oct. 28) 1880), who seems to have taken much pains, and that of Mr. Tabor, the eminent photographer of San Francisco, who, noticing the lineations of a print that he had accidentally made with his own inked finger upon a blotting-paper, experimented further, and finally proposed the method of finger prints for the registration of Chinese, whose identifica-
|