AMERICAN GEOLOGY EATONIAN ERA, l820-i829. 



263 



tomed to a close shoe, the toes being too much spread and the foot 

 flattened. The length of the foot was 10i inches, width across the 

 spread toes 4 inches, and at the swell of the heels ]>k inches. Public 

 attention was first called to these prints by the Rev. Frederick Rapp, 

 the head of the religious sect "Hal■monites, ,, who had them removed 

 to his village of Harmony, and w T ho, it is said, taught that they were 

 the impressions of the feet of the Saviour. 



According to Schoolcraft, every appearance warranted the conclu- 

 sion that the impressions were made at a time when the rock was soft 



Fig. 14. — Supposed human footprints in limestone. (After D. D. Owen.) 



enough to receive them by pressure, and the marks of the feet were 

 natural and genuine. In this opinion, he stated, Governor Cass coin- 

 cided. He acknowledged, however, there were difficulties in the way 

 of accepting this belief, and one of these was the want of tracks lead- 

 ing to and from them. He could only account for this on the suppo- 

 sition that the toe prints might have pointed inland, "in which case we 

 should be at liberty to conjecture that the person making them had 

 landed from the Mississippi and proceeded no farther into the interior." 



