Finger-prints

Finger-prints taken on paper by means of printing-ink or other medium from human fingers show, as has long been known, markings peculiar to every individual from the patterns of the skin furrows, which in arrangement are unchanged from childhood to death in any given person. Such finger-prints have been used as a means of signing or certifying documents in China and Japan from a remote antiquity. The method has lately been recommended and used as a means of identifying criminals. See Galton, Finger-Prints (1892).