388 Dr. Deane on the Discovery of Fossil Footmarks. 



in his annual address likewise alluded to the letter in handsome 

 terms, and with entire impartiality defined the distinction between 

 the claims of Mr. H. and myself; and he paid a just tribute of 

 respect to Mr. H. "for the great moral courage exhibited by him 

 in throwing down his opinions before an incredulous public." 

 It may be merely a concurrence of circumstances, but until the 

 publication of this correspondence, Mr. H. did not urge any ex- 

 clusive claim on his own behalf, or on that of his numerous sub- 

 ordinates. 



Now the most inexplicable part of this address is this, that hav- 

 ing arrayed a company of original discoverers, Mr. H. should en- 

 tirely cancel their claims, by appropriating to himself the honor 

 of original discovery on the assumed ground of science ! In Sept. 

 1835, after he had settled upon his scientific nomenclature, he 

 acknowledged to me that I was the original discoverer, and the 

 spirit of his early correspondence testified to the sincerity of this 

 admission. The deliberate assumption, that although others had 

 found these important fossils, he only had discovered them, pene- 

 trated me with a keen sense of its injustice.* It was enforced by 

 allusions, degrading me on the ground of incompetency to under- 

 stand a self-evident truth. In my first letter to Mr. H. I admitted 

 that I was not a geologist, and this admission he turns into a keen 

 weapon against me. I also, most unscientifically, suggested the 

 variety of bird that made the impressions, and he alludes to this 

 as corroborating evidence of incompetency ; he even thinks that 

 Mr. Wilson did not suggest this idea to me, and that it was orig- 

 inal with me ! Mr. H. should be slow to taunt an associate or 

 an adversary on the score of hasty and erroneous conclusions. 

 Even on the subject of these footmarks, Mr. H. himself is not 

 quite clear of mistakes, for he has dropped several of his species, 

 after a full and scientific description of them ; and it is my delib- 

 erate opinion that the cause would suffer no injury if the list 

 was still much more condensed. Nay, he has repeatedly com- 

 mitted the disqualifying error with which he charges me, "of 

 referring the tracks to birds similar to those now living." In the 

 twenty ninth volume of this Journal, p. 327, Mr. H. compares a 

 particular variety of footmarks with those of the « turkey," & 

 having "a similar foot;" and in the succeeding page, he affirms 





* See Report of the doings of the Association at page 113 of this volume 



