Method of Indexing Finger-Marks, In Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. From Dec. 11, 1890 to May 28, 1891

London: Harrison and Sons, 1891. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good+/No Dust Jacket. Octavo. In volume XLIX, pages 540 - 548, of Proceedings of the Royal Soceity of London. Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, was much interested in anthropometric classification. On 27 November 1890, he read a paper to the Royal Society, which was printed in its Transactions, on "The Patterns of Thumb and Finger Marks." In May 1891 Galton contributed to the Proceedings of the Royal Society, "A Method of indexing Finger-Marks" In these papers, his discovery of anthropometric classification of fingerprints were announced in print for the first time. In August of that year he wrote for The Nineteenth Century a popular account of the subject under the title "Identification by Finger-Tips." In 1892, in his book "Finger Prints" Galton gathered together all these earlier studies and recorded other experiments, illustrated from photographs and drawings. The outcome of this was the appointment in 1899 of a Royal Commission which came out in favor of the adoption of the system by the British police forces. (Printing and the Mind of Man, 376). Bound in contemporary 3/4 black cloth over marbled boards, bookplate and University of PA stamped on title page; location number on spine. Internally clean and bright.