16 Human Foot-Prints in Solid Limestone. 



into the possession of Mr. Rapp. is to be found in the subjoined ex- 

 tracts from a letter written by the gentleman under whose inspec- 

 tion it was quarried, then a resident of St. Louis, but now of 

 Cincinnati, Mr. Paul Anderson. This letter is dated October 11, 

 1841, and is in reply to one which I addressed, in the course of 

 last autumn to Mr. Baker, Mr. Rapp's man of business, who was 

 a resident of Harmony at the time of the purchase, and in which 

 I had requested of him to procure for me what information he 

 could on the subject. 



Mr. Anderson writing to Mr. Baker, says : 



" The letter of Mr. David Dale Owen, of the 20th ult. enclosed 

 in yours of the 8th inst. was duly received by me here. 



"Well, sir, as to the limestone slab that Mr. Frederick Rapp 

 obtained of me sometime in 1819 at St. Louis, I will tell you its 

 history. The year after I was located in St. Louis, during the ex- 

 treme low water of the Mississippi, I was shown the imprint of hu- 

 man feet, that was in the limestone rock on the very margin of the 

 river, and which had been only seen by the old inhabitants there 

 very few times ; as it was said by them that it was not more than 

 once in the period of ten years or so, that the river fell to its then 

 stage. This rock lay about opposite the centre of the city proper, 

 and seemed to have been polished smooth by the attrition of the 

 water. There was no rock lying on it, as it was the lower ledge 

 of the stratified limestone that reached, by steps, to the bluff of 

 limestone rock that ranged along the foot of the river lots of the 

 city. This blutl of stratified rock was seemingly from ten to 

 twenty feet high, and from twenty to forty yards from the mar- 

 gin of the river at extreme low water mark, all along the city. 

 This bluff has been quarried out and a fine range of three story 

 stone warehouses erected there on the river front. A street, too, 

 of sixty feet wide has been laid off, besides a graduated McAd- 

 amized wharf on the outside of that again to low water mark. 



"A Mr. John Jones, who claimed a sort of ownership in the 

 rock as being the first discoverer of it that season, was employed 

 by me to cut out the slab for Mr. Frederick Rapp, who was then 

 at St. Louis on a business visit. J. paid Jones (to the best of my 

 recollection) one hundred and eighty dollars for the slab, and 

 shipped it around to New Harmony to Mr. Rapp. Previous to 

 its being sent away, there was an offer made of five hundred 

 dollars for it by a " virtuoso" from some of the eastern cities ; 



