Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/409

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PALM AND SOLE IMPRESSIONS.
405

The order of arrangement for each position would be naturally to consider the signs of the patterns as precedent to zero, an arrangement which it will be noticed, has been followed in the above list. A rudiment, like Galton's descriptive suffixes, is disregarded in the arrangement, and counts like other zeroes.

Fig. 5. Print of a Right Sole [Collection No. 112] showing a High Degree of Complexity, and presenting difficulties in formulation. There are two lower triradii, probably the first and second, in which D and B [IV and II] terminate respectively: the triradius of line C[=III] is beyond the limit of the print and its location is in part conjectural; the second and fourth digital lines curve downward across the palm.


Morphologically the same pattern, i. e., one in a given position, may differ considerably in regard to its mode of formation, the presence or absence of 'pattern triradii' or those concerned in its structure, the shape of the pattern itself, its degree of completeness and so on, and all these attributes may be easily added by means of a series of easily devised descriptive signs, like the 'descriptive suffixes' of Galton, and used as exponents, having, like the exponent r, no influence upon