Hemarks on the Prinh of Human Feel, 223 



Art. II. — Remarks on the Prints of Human Feet, olse.rvcd 

 in Iht secondary limestone of the Mississippi valley. 



TO PROFESSOR SILLIMAX, 



Bujalo, {X Y,)Jiinc 5th, 1822, 



Sir, 



I now send yon a drawing of two curious prints of the 

 hum.'jn foot in limestone rock, observed by mc last summer, 

 in a detached slab o( secondary ibnnation, at Harmony, on 

 the Wabash ; together with a letter of Col. Thos. H. Ben- 

 ton, a senator in Congress from Missouri, on the same sub- 

 ject. The slab of stone containing these impressions, was 

 originally quarried on the west bank of the Mississippi riv- 

 er, at St. Louis, and belongs to the elder flo^tz range of 

 limestone, which pervades that country to a yevj great 

 extent. 



The?e prints appear to have been noticed by the French 

 soon after they penetrated into that country from the Cana- 

 das, and during the progress of settlement at SU Louis, 

 were frequently resorted to as a phenomenon in the works 

 of nature. But no person appears to have entertained the 

 idea of raising them from the quarry with a view to preser- 

 vation, until Mr. Rappe* visited that place five or six years 

 ago. He immediately determined to remove the stone con- 

 taining them to his village of Harmony, then recently trans- 

 ferred from Butler county in Pennsylvania, to the banks of 

 the Wabash ; but this determination was no sooner known 

 than popular sentiment began to arraign his motives, and 

 people were ready to attribute to religious fanaticism or 

 arch deception, what wa?, more probably, a mere act of 

 momentary caprice, or settled taste. His followers, it was 

 said, were to regard these prints as the sacred impress of 

 the feet of our Saviour. Few persons thought of interpos- 



* 



The Rev. Freaerick Rappe is the ecclesiastical head of a religious sect 

 ^Ued Harrnoniies, who emigrated from the kingdom of Wirtemt^erg;, in 

 Gerruauy, about the year 1804. They first settled in Western Pennsylva- 

 nia, where they introduced the cultivation of the vine. Their indusfryj so- 

 briety, neatness, and orderly conduct soon attracte'l uniTcrsal notice, b^t 

 increasing rapidly in wealth and number?, they afterwards (about 1814) 

 removed intp [ndiana. H. K. S. 



