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 little to the right. We must leave room for the thumb and the fingers of the left hand. There, that's it. Now the same with the left."

"Come, Tarzan," cried D'Arnot, "let's see what your whorls look like."

Tarzan complied readily, asking many questions of the officer during the operation.

"Do finger prints show racial characteristics?" he asked. "Could you determine, for example, solely from finger prints whether the subject was Negro or Caucasian?"

"I think not," replied the officer, "although some claim that those of the negro are less complex."

"Could the finger prints of an ape be detected from those of a man?"

"Probably, because the ape's would be far simpler than those of the higher organism."

"But a cross between an ape and a man might show the characteristics of either progenitor?" continued Tarzan.

"Yes, I should think likely," responded the official; "but the science has not progressed sufficiently to render it exact enough in such matters. I should hate to trust its findings further than to differentiate between individuals.

"There it is absolute. No two people born into the world probably have ever had identical lines upon all their digits. It is very doubtful if any single finger print will ever be exactly dupli- [364]