& 
i oa 
24 - Human Foot-Prints.in Solid Limestone. 
if impressed when soft enough to receive such deep and distinct 
tracks.” 
“'T'o those who are familiar with the facts of sea and fresh wa- 
ter shells, ferns, madrepores, and other fossil organic remains in 
the hardest sandstones and limestones of our continent, the hard- 
ness of the rock and the supposed rapidity of its consolidation, 
will not presents objections of that force which the writer (Col. 
Benton) supposes. But the want of tracks leading to and from 
them presents a difficulty which cannot perhaps be so readily ob- 
viated. We should certainly suppose such tracks to exist, unless 
it could be ascertained thatthe toes of the prints, when in situ, 
pointed inland, in which case we should be at liberty to conjec- 
ture, that the person making them, had landed from the Missis- 
sippi and proceeded no further into the interior. But no inquiry 
has enabled me to ascertain this fact, the circumstance not being 
recollected by Col. Benton and others who have often visited this 
curiosity while it remained in its natural position at St. Louis.* 
“The following considerations, it will be seen, are stated by 
Col. Benton, as capable of being urged in opposition to his the- 
ory of their being of factitious origin. ssi, 7 
“1. The exquisiteness of the workmanship, 
“2, The difficulty of working such hard material without steel 
oriron.” | 
wards the river.” Yet I do not attribute to this fact so much importance as Mr. 
we suppose but the single impression made) that an Indian should step out from. 
his canoe backwards, and in that position shove it off again, as that he should 
make one step on shore, as if with the intention to land, and then step backwards 
', agam into his canoe; = == Se ee a et 
7 
