☞Palmistry

Explore a hand that redraws itself as you try each form of a line, finger or thumb — or take hold of the bright handle on the heart, head or life line, or on the thumb, and drag it into shape; the hand is shaded and shadowed, its lines draw themselves in, names appear under the pointer, and it turns a little in the light as the mouse moves; read your own hand step by step, from its elemental shape to the mounts and marks, and see the hand you describe drawn as you go; compare your two hands, and the same hand months apart; trace the lines on a photo of a palm, with an automatic crease finder to bring them out; and practise finding every feature. See how Indian and Chinese palm reading differ from the Western. Its history is set along the life line, from Aristotle to Cheiro, and the hand is labelled as the first printed palmistries labelled it, in Latin — the table line, the table of the hand, the triangle — to tap and learn, or to find by name. Turn to the fingertips: the arches, loops and whorls Galton sorted prints into, drawn afresh each time to tell apart, with your own ten fingers set against how common each pattern is, and what is known of them. Then read hands that are not your own: a stranger's hand drawn at random, to say what you see in it, what it means in the old language, which planet rules it and what shape it is; and two hands side by side, to tell whose head line slopes more or whose thumb opens wider.