troubled with only a few examples, taken out of a considerable collection of extracts from books and letters, in which prints, or rather daubs of the above kind, are mentioned. A good instance of their small real value may be seen in the _Trans. China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society_, Part 1, 1847, published at Hong-Kong, which contains a paper on "Land Tenure in China," by T. Meadows Taylor, with a deed concerning a sale of land, in facsimile, and its translation: this ends, "The mother and the son, the sellers, have in the presence of all the parties, received the price of the land in full, amounting to sixty-four taels and five mace, in perfect dollars weighed in scales. _Impression of the finger of the mother, of the maiden name of Chin._" The impression, as it appears in the woodcut, is roundish in outline, and was therefore made by the tip and not the bulb of the finger. Its surface is somewhat mottled, but there is no trace of any ridges. The native clerks of Bengal give the name of _tipsahi_ to the mark impressed by illiterate persons who, refusing to make either a X or their caste-mark, dip their finger into the ink-pot and touch the document. The tipsahi is not supposed to individualise the signer, it is merely a personal ceremony performed in the presence of witnesses. [Illustration: PLATE 1. FIG. 1. Chinese Coin, Tang Dynasty, about 618 A.D., with nail mark of the Empress Wen-teh, figured in relief. FIG. 2. Order on a Camp Sutler, by the officer of a surveying party in New Mexico. 1882.]