Finger Prints - Francis Galton

RIGHT FOREFINGER of Sir W. J. H. in 1860 and in 1888.

Fig. 23.

DISTRIBUTION of the PERIODS of LIFE,
to which the evidence of persistency refers.

For the sake of those who are deficient in the colour sense and therefore hardly able, if at all, to distinguish even the blue numerals in Figs. 20, 21, I give an eleventh example, [Plate 15], Fig. 22, printed all in black. The numerals are here very legible, but space for their insertion had to be obtained by sacrificing some of the lineations. It is the right fore-finger of Sir W. Herschel and has been already published twice; first in the account of my lecture at the Royal Institution, and secondly, in its present conspicuous form, in my paper in the Nineteenth Century. The number of years that elapsed between the two impressions is thirty-one, and the prints contain twenty-four points of comparison, all of which will be seen to agree. I also possess a later print than this, taken in 1890 from the same finger, which tells the same tale.

The final result of the prints in these pages is that they give photographic enlargements of the whole or portions of eleven couplets belonging to six different persons, who are members of five unrelated families, and which contain between them 158 points of comparison, of which only one failed. Adding the portions of the prints that are omitted here, but which will be found in the Phil. Trans., the material that I have thus far published contains 389 points of comparison, of which one failed. The details are given in the annexed table:—

Order in the Figs.	Initials.	Digit of right hand.	Age at date of first print.	Dates of the two prints.	Years elapsed between the two prints.	Total points of agreement in
Order in the Figs.	Initials.	Digit of right hand.	Age at date of first print.	1st. 2nd.	Years elapsed between the two prints.	Figs. 20 and 21.	Figs. 20, 22, and in Ph. Trans.
Fig. 20
1.	V. H. Hd.	Fore	2½	1877-90	13	26	26
2.	V. H. Hd.	Ring	2½	1877-90	13	42	42

Fig. 21
1.	A. E. H. Hl.	Fore	8	1881-90	9	11	33
2.	A. E. H. Hl.	Ring	8	1881-90	9	5	36
3.	N. H. Tn.	Fore	28	1862-90	28	6	27
4.	N. H. Tn.	Middle	28	1862-90	28	10	36
5.	F. K. Ht.	Fore	28	1862-88	26	12	55
6.	R. F. Hn.	Middle	31	1859-90	31	6	27
7.	W. J. Hl.	Thumb	30	1860-90	30	9	50
8.	W. J. Hl.	Ring	31	1859-90	31	6	32

Fig. 22
1.	W. J. Hl.	Fore	31	1859-90	31	24	24
Total points of agreement						157	388
Do. of disagreement						1	1

It is difficult to give a just estimate of the number of points of comparison that I have studied in other couplets of prints, because they were not examined as exhaustively as in these. There were no less than one hundred and eleven of them in the ball of the thumb of the child V. H. Hd., besides twenty-five in the imperfect prints of his middle and little fingers; these alone raise the total of 389 to 525. I must on the whole have looked for more than 700 points of comparison, and have found agreement in every single case that was examined, except the one already mentioned in Fig. 20, of a ridge that was split in the child, but had closed up some few years later.