Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/390

386 of the ball of the thumb (usually considered to be the right one alone) is individual and distinctive, while those of the remaining fingers, or the similar markings of the palm are of no importance.

It is of interest also to note that, owing to the common belief in palmistry, whereby divination is performed by means of the chance wrinkles caused by the motion of the fingers, these useless features have assumed so great importance that the far more interesting ridges appear to be usually ignored or even overlooked entirely, and as for the ridges of the sole of the foot or the balls of the toes, their very existence appears to be generally unknown.

Since there seems to be so much popular misinformation upon the subject of systems of identification, it may not be superfluous to begin the present discussion with a brief description of each of the two systems mentioned above, after which will be presented the claims of the system based upon palms and soles.

The first scientific method for classifying humanity by data furnished by individual bodily peculiarities, or at least the first that became widely adopted, was that devised by M. Alphonse Bertillon, who in 1880 founded his celebrated system of identification by means of bodily measurements, 'Identification anthropométrique.' In this he applies the principles of anthropometrics, employed hitherto mainly as ethnological criteria or for use in physical culture, to the identification of individuals, using for that purpose only those measurements which depend on skeletal parts, and which are, therefore, practically unchanging after adult life is reached. The measurements selected to form the basis of his system are as follows:

Each of these eleven measurements is subdivided into three groups, small, medium and large [petite moyen, grand]; in accordance with