Remarks on the Prints of Human Feet. 223 



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

 in the secondary limestone of the Mississippi valley. 



TO PROFESSOrv SILLIMAN. 



Biifalo, {K Y.) June 5th, 1822. 



Sir, 



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

 human foot in hmestone rock, observed by me last summer, 

 in a detached slab of secondary formation, at Harmony, on 

 the Wabash •, together with a letter of Co!. 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 tloetz range of 

 limestone, which pervades that country to a very great 

 extent. 



These 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 St. 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 was, 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. Frederick Rappe is the ecclesiastical head of a religious sect 

 called Harmonites, who emigrated from the kingdom of Wirtemberg, in 

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

 nia, vi^here they introduced the cultivation of the vine. Their industry, so- 

 briety, neatness, and orderly conduct soon attracted universal notice, but 

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

 removed into Indiana. H. R. S. 



