The true cure for this evil, which has often been pointed out, would seem to be the systematic instruction of the police force--or some select numbers of them--in all such matters as come within their official duties. With eight years’ experience as a police surgeon, I must say that a great deal of the valuable kind of evidence that recent fiction has made popular is spoiled by the methods of the average constable. Professor Glaister, the eminent medical jurist of Glasgow, was, I think, the first to give a place to finger-print evidence in a work on Forensic Medicine. The second edition of his work is fully illustrated with specimens. We have seen that the study of finger-and foot-prints now forms a regular subject in the medical course of Birmingham University. It would be easy to arrange, at local centres, such instruction in this method as is now frequently given to constables in ambulance work. To some extent this, I believe, has already been done, but the teachers themselves evidently need to be taught some elemental principles to instruct effectively. The huge records left in Scotland Yard and other police centres of administration have not as yet done any service to the biological aspects of Dactylography. They are silent and still as the rocks were before Hutton and Lyell struck them with the rod of science and made living springs gush out in great abundance. GLOSSARY OF SOME TERMS USED BY DACTYLOGRAPHERS. ACCIDENTALS. Nondescript patterns in the class composites. ANTHROPOID. Of the great man-like apes (gorilla, orangutan, and chimpanzee). ANTHROPOMETRIC. Bodily measurements. ANTHROPOMETRY. Science of accurate bodily measurements. ARCH. A curved set of lineations, without backward turn; a bow. BERTILLONAGE. Alphonse Bertillon’s anthropometric methods. BIFURCATION. Fork-like splitting into two branches. BLUR. A dull, smudgy imprint. BOW. A curved lineation like a bow. BULB. The pad of a finger-tip. CHARACTERISTIC. Any striking feature in a pattern which gives distinctiveness. CHIRALITY. The principle involved in “Mirror Patterns.” COMPOSITE. Patterns composed of various elements, such as arch, loop, or whorl. CORE. The heart or central portion of a finger-print. CREASE (_palmar_). The lines which indicate folding of the hand surface. DACTYLOGRAPH. A finger-impression taken by any process. DACTYLOLITE. An indented finger-print as on wax. DACTYLOSCOPY (_Daktyloskopie_). The practical study of Finger-prints. DELTA. A somewhat triangular figure formed by skin lineations. DERMA, DERMAL. The deep true skin, the “quick.” DIGIT, DIGITAL. A finger, of fingers. EPIDERMIS. The upper skin which readily peels off. EPITHELIUM. The scaly surface of skin. EXHIBIT. An article to be shown in court as evidence. “FLEXIBLE CURVES.” An instrument for measuring enlarged curving lineations. FORK. A =Y=-like figure.