Finger Prints
Francis Galton · 1892
Read Finger Prints by Francis Galton (1892) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/galton-finger-prints-1892.txt.
Description
In Finger Prints, published in 1892, Galton set out to prove that the ridges on a fingertip can name a person for life. He collected prints from thousands of hands and studied their arches, loops, and whorls. Police forces were then still searching for a sure way to name repeat offenders.
Galton showed that prints stay fixed from youth to old age and that no two fingers match. He worked out a first system for sorting prints so a single finger could be traced in a file. His book gave fingerprint proof its firm scientific base.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Francis Galton |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 1892 |
| COLLECTION | BOOKS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 364 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | Public Domain |
| RIGHTS | PUBLIC DOMAIN |
| SOURCE | Project Gutenberg #36979 |