Finger Prints

"I should say that one of the inducements to making these inquiries into personal identification has been to discover independent features suitable for hereditary investigation."
-Sir Francis Galton, "Personal Identification and Description" (1889)
In Finger Prints (1907), Sir Francis Galton described the research he did related to the use of fingerprints for identification. Through this work, he validated a theory first proposed by Sir Willliam Herschel and gave the use of fingerprinting a scientific validity that laid the groundwork for its use in criminal investigations. This edition of his book contains minor revisions the author made to the original 1883 publication.

Among his many significant accomplishments, British scientist SIR FRANCIS GALTON (1822-1911) was an explorer, a geographer, a statistician, and inventor of fingerprint identification. In addition to more than 300 scientific papers, he wrote the books Hereditary Genius (1914), Finger Prints (1893), Memories of My Life (1908), and others.