extensively used Henry System of Finger Print Classification, which enables one familiar with its intricacies to make a set of ten apical impressions or dermatographs, classify it, and produce the person's history record (assuming one on file) in a period of time varying from five to fifteen minutes. Under this scientific system nothing is required of the subject save the set of ten apical dermatographs. Given this and nothing more, no name, no address, no physical description or photograph, the identifier "solves for x," to use an algebraic term. A record being produced, the subject's medical history, for instance, in the case of a hospital or clinic for the feeble-minded or insane, is at once available, no matter how long the interval between treatments, or the changed facial appearance of the subject, or similarity in names. Galton in his "Finger Prints," Chapter IV, page 57, says concerning the ridges covering the palm of the hand and the sole of the foot: Having given but little attention to them myself they will not be again referred to. Opposite, on Plate III., Fig. 6, are displayed four palm outlines and one showing the general configuration on both palm and fingers. In this field of investigation Galton's mantle fell on one of his American correspondents (also a correspondent of Bertillon) who has confined himself to the palms and soles, and of whom it may fairly be said, to paraphrase Galton: If the use of palm- and soleprints ever becomes of general importance, Dr. Harris Hawthorne Wilder, zoologist, must be regarded as the first who devised a feasible method for their regular use and afterward promulgated it. In one of his first papers on the subject Dr. Wilder says: The great individual variation of these parts in the human being is not without significance and furnishes an excellent illustration of the biological truth that the perfection and constancy of an organ are directly proportional to its necessity in the life of the organism . . . that only useful and important parts retain a certain normal form in the various individuals of a given species, and that, as they become of less importance, they tend more and more to vary individually, the range of variation increasing with time and the degree of uselessness, if such an expression may be allowed; conversely, an organ that is seen to possess marked individual variation is shown to be of secondary importance, and may be either a rudimentary organ, that is one on the way towards a greater usefulness in the future and in which the variations represent the numerous experiments or attempts to find the form best adapted for a special purpose, or, again, it may be a vestigial organ, or one in which its point of usefulness a is passed and in which the variations represent various degrees of degeneracy, or stages in its gradual eradication from the organism.17 FIG. 3. Tracings from four left palms and three left soles, showing the great individual variation. (From H. H. Wilder's "Palm and Sole Impressions," POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, Sept., 1903.) In a subsequent paper almost a year later, in which the subject is dealt with in more detail, he says: These ridges and their peculiar disposal are an inheritance from our arboreal ancestors, and appear to be formed in the oldest primates by the coalescence of single units which arrange themselves in rows.18 Whether 17 Wilder, "Scientific Palmistry," POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, November, 1902, pp. 46-47. 18 Wilder, "Palm and Sole Impressions," POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, Sept., 1903, p. 396. In a footnote Dr. Wilder says "This and other morphological points of which I shall make use in this article are from an unpublished paper on the morphology of the subject by an associate in my department, Miss Inez L. Whipple. At my suggestion Miss Whipple has or not this phylogenetic or racial stage is now passed through in each human embryo in accordance with the law of biogenesis has not as yet been shown, but it is certain that the ridges are seen fully formed and in their adult condition in a four-months' embryo, and that no change can afterward take place in any detail. As these surfaces are thus individually variant and as their condition is absolutely permanent through life, they offer the best criteria for a system of individual records, especially since they may be so easily recorded by means of printed impressions. All these points have been shown by Mr. Galton, who has taken as a basis for his system the markings that cover the balls of the fingers, his "finger tips." The present paper considers the remainder of the ridged surfaces and is thus seen to be an extension of the Galtonian system to new territory. Whether ultimately the universal personal records which will surely become necessary in the near future will be based upon a part or the whole of these surfaces is of no real moment, and it is with the idea of being of genuine assistance to Mr. Galton, and without any attempt at rivalry, that I offer in the following pages a method of recording identity by means of palms and soles.19 In a subsequent paper, entitled "Palm and Sole Studies," published in The Biological Bulletin (Vol. XXX., Feb., 1916, page 135), the subject is introduced as follows: In the study of the details of the configuration of the friction ridges found covering the surfaces of the human palms and soles there opens up a field of the greatest value to the biologist. Varying greatly individually; still following the lines laid down for them in more primitive mammals, yet modified and varied as the result of mechanical causes; showing markedly and with certainty a direct inheritance from the immediate parents as well as from generations more remote; they may be used with great profit by the morphologist, the ethnologist, or the student of genetics, while, as the surest and most positive characters of an individual, they may serve the authorities in the identification of a human body, living or dead. Undoubtedly the patterns are complicated, and many new conceptions, and the new terminology which expresses them, confront the beginner, as in any new field; but this much once accomplished, there opens up to the investigator an almost endless series of new phenomena the study of which in the few years during which the subject has received special attention has been no more than begun. Continuing, this paper considers such subjects as "A Primitive Palm Print"; the "Heritability of Friction-skin Characters"; Palm and Sole Markings in both duplicate and fraternal twins, also conjoined twins or those which have never separated completely. The morphological investigations by Miss Inez L. Whipple undertaken the comparison of the human conditions of palm and sole with those of the lower primates and other mammals, and has studied also the ontogenetic development of the parts in man and other forms. This work is of the greatest value in the present connection and will be published in full in a short time." 19 Wilder, "Palm and Sole Impressions," page 396. (now Mrs. H. H. Wilder), previously referred to, were eventually published (in English) in a foreign scientific publication20 under the title given below. This paper has proved to be "the fundamental paper on the comparative morphology of the ridge patterns of the palms and soles, and includes the study of the relief of the ridge surfaces in all mammals, and the growth of the ridge surfaces as modified by this. This paper with that of Schlaginhaufen, 1905, are of first importance in the scientific study of human friction ridges." It is certainly most unfortunate that such a fundamental work as this is to the professional fingerprint identifier should be practically unavailable owing to the fact that it was snapped up by a foreign scientific publisher. A satisfactory digest of this treatise is almost out of the question as every section and paragraph is essential. Space will permit for no more than the table of contents, to show its broad scope and exhaustive treatment; and a few extracts from the text concerning the ridges and apical ridge patterns in man: THE VENTRAL SURFACE OF THE MAMMALIAN CHIRIDUM, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE CONDITIONS FOUND IN MAN. By MISS INEZ L. WHIPPLE With Preface By PROFESSOR HARRIS HAWTHORNE WILDER, PH.D. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. PART I. Mammalian Pads. A. Morphology of pads. B. Physiology of pads. PART II. Epidermic Ridges. A. Preliminary definition. B. The process of formation of ridges and their distribu- C. The morphological significance of epidermic warts. 20 Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Anthropologie, Stuttgart, Bd. VII., pp. 261-368 (107 pages), 1904. 66 21 Wilder, Bibliography of Friction-skin Configuration," Biological Bulletin, Vol. XXX., p. 251. PART III. Epidermic Ridge Patterns in Prosimians and Primates. A. Preliminary classification. B. Typical primary patterns. C. Modified primary patterns. D. Secondary and false patterns. The process of ridge formation and their distribution with relation to the pads is exhaustively treated in Part II., Sec. B. After devoting fourteen pages to the careful examination of ridge formation in the lower mammals, in which the develop FIG. 4. Dermatographs from the human heel (left, female) showing in a, a normal condition, the unit elements being mostly all fused into ridges, only a few one, two and three unit ridges being present; in b, the opposite condition is shown, it being difficult to find a ridge of more than four or five units, the single elements having never fused into ridges. (From H. H. Wilder's collection, Nos. 722 and 754 respectively.) ment is traced from the simplest epidermic structure, the scale or wart, the most common form of which is a single sweat gland and its pore opening near the middle of the structure (The "island" or "unit ridge" of the identifier); and the fusion of these elements by one of three observed methods to form the ridge (Fig. 4 a, b); and demonstrating that the concentric whorl is the primary pattern, Miss Whipple says regarding the ridge development in the higher primates and man: Although in the higher primates the complete covering of the surface of the chiridium by ridges seemed at first to preclude the possibility of obtaining any evidence of the method of ridge formation, the fact that in |