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tion has always been a difficulty, and was giving a great deal of trouble at that particular time ; but his proposal dropped through. Again Mr. Gilbert Thompson, an American geologist, when on Government duty in 1882 in the wild parts of New Mexico, paid the members of his party by order of the camp sutler. To guard against forgery he signed his name across the impression made by his finger upon the order, after first pressing it on his office pad. He was good enough to send me the duplicate of one of these cheques made out in favour of a man who bore the ominous name of "Lying Bob " (Plate 1, Fig. 2). The impression took the place of the scroll work on an ordinary cheque ; it was in violet aniline ink, and looked decidedly pretty. From time to time sporadic instances like these are met with, but none are comparable in importance to the regular and official employment made of finger prints by Sir William Herschel, during more than a quarter of a century in Bengal. I was exceedingly obliged to him for much valuable information when first commencing this study, and have been almost wholly indebted to his kindness for the materials used in this book for proving the persistence of the lineations throughout life.
Sir William Herschel has presented me with one of the two original " Contracts " in Bengali, dated 1858, which suggested to his mind the idea of using this method of identification. It was so difficult to obtain credence to the signatures of the natives, that he thought he would use the signature of the hand
