Supplementary chapter to 'Finger prints' : Decipherment of blurred finger prints.

  • Galton, Francis, 1822-1911.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Supplementary chapter to 'Finger prints' : Decipherment of blurred finger prints. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    seven-fold scale, it will be seen that they are here presented in three different manners. Plates V. to VIII. are the simple untouched enlargements. In IX. to XII. these same enlargements are shown in orange, with the axes of the ridges as I have deciphered them, printed in a different and darker colour. It would be the business of a barrister to so examine an expert as to elicit the value of the decipherment in each particular. Plates XIII. to XVI. are skeleton charts; they show the axes of the ridges alone, with numbers attached to each point of reference, for facilitating comparison and explanation. The whole of the materials for forming a judgment are given here, in a shape somewhat similar to that which, I presume, would be put into the hands of each member of the jury and others concerned with the case. The set of three might be photo-lithographed as these are, but on the same sheet, or they might be submitted as ordinary photographic prints. The first set shows the original data on a seven-fold scale, the third set shows their decipherment, while the second set combines the first and the third. The numbers printed by the sides of the points of reference were not inserted in the second set, lest its general effect should be spoiled by them. When the decipherment of Plates IX. to XII. has been accepted as correct, the comparison of the skeleton charts is as simple a matter as that of two plans, drawn on the same principle and to the same scale, with the view of ascertaining whether they refer to the same district. The fact of the practically infinite variety of skeleton charts would be impressed