File:Guide to finger-print identification (electronic resource) (1905) (14804424303).jpg

Identifier: b20443493 (find matches)
Title: Guide to finger-print identification (electronic resource)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Faulds, Henry, 1843-1930
Subjects: Dermatoglyphics
Publisher: Hanley : Wood, Mitchell
Contributing Library: Wellcome Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Wellcome Library

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cannot, I believe, be anything buta print from a human finger and the general shape, even if all thelineations but the proper finger-pattern, so-called, are dim, maygive good evidence for identification. Single Smudges. Meanwhile I venture to suggest that no single smudge of theusual type should be spoken of too dogmatically as a finger- orthumb-print till it has been seen to coincide very completely withsome genuine finger or thumb, or at least has flexures like thosedescribed. When there is a serial impression of two, or still better,of three fingers, the problem is placed in a different light altogether.We can say with certainty that if they are of class 3 they are fromhuman digits, by which is now technically meant not the whole finger,but the small concentrated group of ridges and furrows in the lowerpart of the last joint. They are often most distinctive. I was once asked by an intelligent young detective in OldScotland Yard whether he was really required to believe that a tiny
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig. 15. Right thumb, fore, middle, and ring finger. Good smudges,done without supervision or training. 49 patch of skin like that of a finger-tip could contain a variety of linesenough to help in identification. This was about the year 1889. Onthe wall beside him hung a map of London. Pointing out a similarlittle patch on that map—New Cross Junction, in fact—where a closenetwork of lines is shown, I convinced him and several others whohad become keenly interested in the discussion that, if that little bitof paper were detached from its surroundings there would be withinit enough evidence to indicate to what city it related. If one wereto cut out as a silhouette the head of our gracious Sovereign from apenny postage stamp this would give some conception of thesmallness of the space in a human finger into which so muchsignificance is condensed. Counting from the centre of an averagepattern, there may be some fifteen or more ridges running down oneach side, but the spacing of those

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