Dactylography; Or, The Study of Finger-printsFaulds, Henry
History
Dactylography; Or, The Study of Finger-prints
Faulds, Henry
Fingerprints
In 1909, however, a paper was published by the Zoological Society
of London, in which this separation is considered to be no longer
justifiable, so that the lemurs and big man-like apes (orang,
chimpanzee, and gorilla) would no longer be held as separate orders
or sub-orders. There were some who hoped to show that the races of
men corresponded to three primitive anthropoid stocks, linked to the
three kinds of anthropoid apes. Whether the new view be correct or
not, and there is something to be said in its favour, there can be no
reasonable doubt now as to the close affinity which those creatures
have to ourselves and to one another.
When we first encounter remains of man or his close predecessor in the
records of the rocks, he was a dweller in holes and caves of the earth.
He certainly did not make pots of any kind, or at least he has left no
such remains. Probably he had no such companions even as the domestic
dog or cat, no cattle, not at first any kind of grain crop. He lived
on roots and fruits, hunted, and fished. Those early people have often
been called Troglodytes, from the Greek τρώγλη, a cave.
Professor Keith, the learned curator of the museum of the Royal College
of Surgeons, has advanced the theory that about the middle of the
Miocene Age a group of creatures existed, having affinities to man as
he now is, which group the professor names Proto-troglodytes. From
these sprung three classes of Troglodytes, namely:
The Gorilla;
The Chimpanzee;
Man.
Some eighty-seven anatomical features are said to be possessed by the
gorilla in common with man only, while the chimpanzee has ninety-eight
such features as belong to man. The gorilla has the best and biggest
teeth, and in this respect progressive deterioration went on through
the orang-utan and the chimpanzee to man. According to the estimate of
Professor Keith, there are not in the whole world, at present, more
than 100,000 chimpanzee, and some 10,000 gorillas.
The subject of twins is likely in future to be very interesting in
relation to the resemblance of their finger-patterns. The distinction
is now made of twins proceeding from one zygote or fertilized ovum,
and twins proceeding each from different fertilized ova. In the first
case, it is supposed that the twins are necessarily of the same sex,
while in the other, each twin child may be of the sex determined by the
fertilized ovum from which it sprung. Clearly, in the latter case it
might often happen that both twins might be male, or both female.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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