Remarks on the Prints of Hainan Feet, 227 



the want of tracks leading to and from them, presents -a 

 difficulty, which cannot, perhaps, be so readily obviated. 

 We should certainly suppose such tracks to exist, unless it 

 could be ascertained that the toes of the prints, when in 

 situ, 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 further into the interior. 

 But no enquiry has enabled me to ascertain this fact, the 

 circumstance not being recollected by Col. Benton, and 

 others, who have often Visted this curiosity while it remain- 

 ed 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 theory of their being of factitious origin. 



" 1 . The exquisiteness of the workmanship. 

 " 2. The difficulty of working such hard material zcithout 

 steel or iron,''^ 



The strikingly natural appearance of these prints, has al- 

 ways appeared to me, to be one of the best evidences of 

 their being genuine; fori cannot suppose that there is any 

 artist noio in America possessed of the skill necessary to 

 produce such perfect and masterly pieces of sculpture : 

 yet, what are we to say of the skill of that people, who 

 are supposed to have been capable of producing such fin- 

 ished pieces of art, without the aid of iron tools ? For, let 

 it constantly be borne in mind, that the antiquity of these 

 prints can be traced back to the earliest discovery of the 

 country, and consequently to the introduction of iron tools 

 and weapons among the aborigines. There are none of 

 our Indian tribes who have made any proficiency in sculp- 

 ture, even since the iron hatchet and knife, have been ex- 

 changed for those of tlint, and of obsidian. All their at- 

 tempts in this way are grotesque, and exhibit a lamentable 

 want of proportions, the same which was seen in the paint- 

 ings, and in the figured vases and pottery of the Asteecks 



the occurrence is a very common one, and is perhaps always, more or less, 

 the result of galvanic excitement. But one conclusion seems naturally to 

 be suggested by this discover) : if secondary rocks, as Hutton and Playfair 

 have taught, have been consolidated by fire, would not the animal here in- 

 carcerated, have been consumed, or at least, such an effect have been pro- 

 duced, upon the animal o.-ganization, as to prevent resuscitation ? II. R. S. 



