For instance, the resemblance may lie in the pattern being made up of loops or whorls in both, but the smaller details, such as the number of the ridges or their minute peculiarities (_e.g._, dividing and then reuniting to form a small island), will not be shared.
The results of other observations tended to show that the influence of the mother upon the type of finger-print is more pronounced than that of the father.
The existence of racial peculiarities in finger-prints, which Dr. Faulds believed that he had discovered in the case of the Japanese, has not been borne out by the experience of others.
The observations of Sir Francis Galton upon numbers of prints representative of pure English, pure Welsh, Hebrew and Negro proved unquestionably that there was no pattern peculiar to any of these races.
The only suggestion of any difference was that the width of the ridges appeared to be more uniform and their direction more parallel in the finger-prints of negroes than in those of the other races.
The same conclusions were drawn from the observations upon the finger-prints of different classes of individuals, those of art students being compared with those of science students, of field labourers, and of idiots. In each instance it was possible to match the type of patterns in one class with those in any of the others. The patterns of the finger-impression of a statesman, for instance, could be matched by those of an idiot.
The first attempt to classify the various patterns formed by the ridges was that of Purkenje, a doctor of medicine who, in 1823, delivered a thesis upon the subject at the University of Breslau.
He concluded that all the varieties of curves might be grouped under nine main heads or standard types, which he described as follows:--
(1) _Transverse curves._ (2) _Central longitudinal stria._ (3) _Oblique stria._ (4) _Oblique sinus._ (5) _Almond._ (6) _Spiral._ (7) _Ellipse or elliptical whorl._ (8) _Circle_ or _circular whorl_; and (9) _Double whorl_.
The differences between these different types are best shown by diagrams, and the accompanying figure, reproduced by permission of Sir Francis Galton, represents the cores of the nine standard patterns.
This classification, resting as it does upon merely superficial appearances, does not afford a certain means of separating the types, since factors, such as the depth of printing, the size of the patterns, and the prominence of secondary details may have an undue influence in the placing of a particular print in one or the other group.