Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/407

Rh for the left hand is 8.6.5.3., which occurs in 9 per cent, of the cases, while for the right hands the commonest formula is 11.9.7.5., occurring in 22 per cent, of the cases. The records from so small a number of cases can not be conclusive, but it would seem both by the number of formulæ represented and by the smaller percentage of occurrence of the commonest formula that the left hand is much more variant.

From this table there may be also calculated the amount of latitude allowed in the positions assumed by each line and the percentage of occurrence of each terminus of each, the results of which are given for convenience in a separate table, as follows:

It will be seen by this that the commonest position for line D is 11 (between the index and middle fingers), a position which occurs in 75 out of 200. Similarly the commonest position for line C is 7; for line B, 5; and for line A also 5; but, curiously enough, the commonest actual formula is not 11.7.5.5., the combination of these. This table also shows that line D may oscillate in its position from the interspace between the ring and little fingers to that between the middle finger and the index; that line C swings between an open position and the same limit as that of line D, and so on.

In the employment of these line formulæ as a primary classification it seems advisable for several reasons to employ that of the left hand first, which will be seen to divide a series into between 40 and 50 compartments, and since the right hands appear to vary independently or nearly so, the addition of the line formulæ of those would subdivide each of the 40 or 50 into about the same number of lesser compartments, or in all approximately 452 or 2,025.

That is, if the hand-prints of a city of 100,000 inhabitants were arranged in accordance with the line classification alone, there would be needed over two thousand compartments, with, theoretically, about