This would prove that the Slavs of Russia were quite dolichocephalic and blond in the beginning, but became brachycephalic and brown exclusively under the influence of evolution, not owing to mixture.

We believe, then, that we have indicated the principal regions of Europe where the neolithic dolichocephals of the German type have been found, and it will be noticed that neither Belgium nor France have been considered, because the neolithic dolichocephals of these countries are not of the German type, properly speaking, although there may have been some connection between them.

As regards the so-called Merovingian skulls which have been found in France, it is well known that they come from immigrants in historic time.

There remains Switzerland, where prehistoric dolichocephals of the German type have been met with, but they are skulls of immigrants. Upon what ground is the assumption based that they are skulls of immigrants? Upon the fact that before them there were already in that country other races of an entirely different type, as has been shown by human bones found there. The skulls which were anterior to those of the German type are brachycephalic, socalled Laponoid resembling those of the race of Grenelle, which, in their turn, are again the descendants of another dolichocephalic race, representing the oldest race of Switzerland.

The Laponoid brachycephals should be distinguished from another prehistoric brachycephalic race of a finer type than that met with in Switzerland in the Bronze and Iron Ages, and which proceeded from the German dolichocephalic race, like that which has passed away in Germany and other countries mentioned in our description.

Thus the succession of the different prehistoric races in Switzerland, from our point of view, is as follows:

1. The primitive dolichocephalic race.

2. Laponoïd brachycephals (not Lapps), issued from the preceding. 3. German dolichocephalic race.

4. Brachycephalic race, issued from the preceding.

At present brachycephaly predominates in Switzerland.

FREQUENCY OF BRACHYCEPHALY AMONG WOMEN IN THE COURSE OF EVOLUTION.

It has already been noted several times that in certain tombs, which contained a more or less large number of dolichocephals and only a few brachycephals, that it was the female sex which most frequently presented brachycephaly or mesaticephaly. Lissauer and

1 His and Rutimeyer. Crania helvetica, Basel 1864. Stüder et Barnwarth. Crania helvetica antiqua. Leipzig, 1894.

Virchow, for German skulls, and Matiegha, for Bohemian, have noticed this fact without, however, attempting to explain it. Thus Lissauer, among 30 skulls of Kaldus, counted 13 dolichocephalic, 13 mesaticephalic, and 4 brachycephalic, and 3 of these last ones were of women.

Virchow, in a communication to the Anthropological Society of Berlin in 1881, on the graves of Slaboszewo, near Mazilno (Posen), presented the study of 16 skulls, 10 of men and 6 of women, whose cephalic index was 72.5 for the former and 77.8 for the latter. Of the 6 women there were 5 mesaticephalic and 1 brachycephalic, but not one dolichocephalic.

Among the skulls of other sepulchers which have been measured by different authors there is sometimes only a single brachycephalic found among a certain number of dolichocephalic ones, and it is precisely the brachycephalic one that belongs to a woman. It might be objected that it is often difficult to recognize the sex characteristics of a female skull, but in a good many sepulchers the skeletons are intact, which permits of distinguishing the sexes.

If, therefore, it be assumed that the brachycephals are immigrants, where there are dolichocephals, it must also be assumed that women only had invaded the localities where only female brachycephals are found-something unbelievable.

Furthermore, it has already often been remarked that the brachycephals were at first found everywhere in small numbers and increased only in the course of centuries. It must then be supposed that the brachycephalic men, if they had been the invaders, were scattered over a wide area of land, being, at a certain period, everywhere in the minority--something which is no less inadmissible.

To say that the brachycephalic immigration came from unknown parts is a pure hypothesis. It must then be supposed that the evolution from the dolichocephalic type to the brachycephalic was first effected in the female sex. In other words, the modification of the cephalic type seems to have made its appearance first in woman.

We could quote other proofs in support of our thesis of the mutability of anthropological characteristics, and if it is admitted that a brachycephalic race might descend, without mixture, from a dolichocephalic race, which also implies the transformation of a blond race into a brown one, the task of historians would be facilitated, and they would thus be able to establish the relationship of certain peoples that are divided not only by name and language but also by anthropological characteristics.

In this way could be explained the connection between the blond Celts and the brown ones by assuming that this people was originally blond. In the same way it could be explained why the Slavs, whom 85360°- -SM 1912-41

history depicts as having once been blond, are now brown or approaching that color.

History also tells us that there have been successive invasions of blonds in Europe, such as of the Celts, the Cimbrians, the Germans, etc. Now, it may be assumed that similar invasions had also taken place in prehistoric times, and it is on that account that the exact period of the settlement of the Celts in western Europe can not be determined; but the Celts might be considered as the predecessors and conquerors of the Cimbrians, Germans, Goths, Normans, etc.

It remains to speak of the origin of the blond or red Fins, the blond Laps, and of the blonds that are sporadically met with among brown nations.

It has already been shown that the blond Finns sprung from brown Finns, and it is thus seen that a blond race might descend from a brown one without the intermediary of any mixture, just as a brown race might descend from a blond one.

As regards the blond Lapps, their evolution is the same as that of the blond Finns; that is to say, they descended directly from the brown Lapps without crossing with a foreign race.

As to the blonds that are met with everywhere in the midst of brown races, in exclusively brown families, they are the result of a simple transient variation, so that they themselves can not procreate but browns, resembling the race from which they sprung.

In conclusion, we believe that it is demonstrated that during Neolithic times there existed in a great part of Europe-in Holland, Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Russiaone and the same dolichocephalic race, being the descendant from the Quaternary dolichocephalic race and which can be considered as the stock from which sprung the blonds mentioned in history under the names of Celto-Galato-Gauls, Cimbrians, Germans, Goths, Normans, etc. All these blond races were therefore of European not Asiatic origin, and they had occupied a vast area and not a more or less limited part of Europe. Subsequently they invaded other parts of Europe and even Asiatic regions.

Later the greater part of these blond races was transformed, becoming brown and brachycephalic without the intermediary of any mixing, and this is the reason why at present exclusively blond races, as described by the ancient authors, are found no more, so that they may be called fossil races.

HISTORY OF THE FINGER-PRINT SYSTEM.

By BERTHOLD Laufer.

[With 7 plates.]

On May 2, 1906, the Evening Post of New York announced in an article headed "Police Lesson from India" the first successful application in this country of the thumb-print test. A notorious criminal had robbed the wife of a prominent novelist in London of £800, had made his escape to New York, and was captured after committing a robbery in one of the large hotels in that city. The Bertillon Bureau of the Police Department took a print of one of his thumbs, which was mailed without any other particulars to the Convict Supervision Office, New Scotland Yard, London, where he was promptly identified. He was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. The system of finger prints is now successfully utilized by the police departments of all large cities of this country, central bureaus of identification having been established in the capitals of the States. The admissibility of finger-print evidence as valid proof of guilt in murder trials was upheld in the case of a colored man executed in Cook County, Ill., on February 16, 1912. He was convicted of murder largely on a showing by the prosecution that the imprint of a finger on the woodwork in the slain man's house corresponded with that in the records of Joliet prison, where an imprint of the accused's fingers had been taken when he was discharged from the penitentiary a short time before the murder. Likewise, in our relations with illiterate people the system has come to the fore. On the approval of the Secretary of the Interior Department, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs instructed officials throughout Oklahoma in 1912 that hereafter every Indian who can not write his name will be required to sign all checks and official papers, and indorse checks and warrants covering Indian money, by making an impression of the ball of his right thumb, such imprint to be witnessed by an employee of the Indian agency or by one of the leading men of the tribe who can write. If an Indian is not living with his tribe, his thumb-mark signature must be witnessed by the postmaster of the place where he resides. Prominent banks

of Chicago have adopted finger prints in the case of foreign-born customers who can not sign their names in English, and it is reported that the scheme has worked out to perfect satisfaction. The cashier of one of the large Chicago banks stated in an interview in the Chicago Tribune of May 14, 1911:

We have never had a complaint or error from this system. There are absolutely no two thumbs alike, and the thumb-print mark is an absolute identification. We have had complaints over signatures, but never over thumb prints. Men have claimed that they did not sign withdrawal slips, but no one has ever denied his thumb mark.

It is well known that the honor of having developed the system of finger prints and placing it on a scientific basis is due to Sir Francis Galton, explorer and scientist, born at Birmingham, England, February 16, 1822, and who died in London in January, 1911. The results of his studies are contained in two books, Finger Prints (London, 1892) and Finger Print Directories (London, 1895).1 The system is based on two observations-the widely varying, individual character of the finger marks (in Galton's words: "It is probable that no two finger prints in the whole world are so alike that an expert would fail to distinguish between them") and the persistency of the form of the marks in the same individual from childhood to old age. Galton comments on the latter point as follows:

As there is no sign, except in one case, of change during any of these four intervals which together almost wholly cover the ordinary life of man (boyhood, early manhood, middle age, extreme old age), we are justified in inferring that between birth and death there is absolutely no change in, say, 699 out of 700 of the numerous characteristics of the markings of the fingers of the same person such as can be impressed by him wherever it is desirable to do so. Neither can there be any change after death up to the time when the skin perishes through decomposition: for example, the marks on the fingers of many Egyptian mummies and on the paws of stuffed monkeys still remain legible. Very good evidence and careful inquiry is thus seen to justify the popular idea of the persistence of finger markings. There appear to be no bodily characteristics other than deep scars and tattoo marks comparable in their persistence to these markings; at the same time they are out of all proportion more numerous than any other measureable features. The dimensions of the limbs and body alter in the course of growth and decay; the color, quantity, and quality of the hair, the tint and quality of the skin, the number and set of the teeth, the expression of the features, the gestures, the handwriting, even the eye color, change after many years. There seems no persistence in the visible parts of the body except in these minute and hitherto disregarded ridges.

The permanency of the finger marks certainly refers to the features of the design, especially the character of the ridges, but not to their measurements, which are subject to the same general changes associated with the growth of the body. Galton himself admits his great

1 Of later books on the subject, E. R. Henry, Classification and Uses of Finger Prints, 3d edition, London, 1905, may be specially mentioned.