April 6, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



!i7 



FOSSILISED HUMAN FOOTPRINTS IN 

 NICARAGUA. 



A FEW years ago attention was drawn to certain 

 foot-marks discovered in a bed of limestone at 

 Carson in Nevada, and a discussion was raised as to 

 their probable origin. 



The Marquis of Nadaillac has recently communicated 

 to La Nature an account of footprints found in Nicaragua, 

 and which, unlike those of Carson, are indisputably 

 human. 



The entire region of Nicaragua gives signs of an intense 

 volcanic activity, which is very far from becoming ex- 

 hausted, but the frequently-renewed eruptions and their 

 consequences have not prevented the surrounding country 

 from becoming inhabited. The rocks overhanging the 

 lakes of Managua and Nicaragua are covered up to great 

 elevations with ancient inscriptions and designs. Even 

 as far back as the conquest, four centuries ago, the 

 Spanish invaders were struck by these designs, though 



day for building their houses. All these deposits rest 

 upon a bed of ashes, forming a conglomerate of fourteen 

 inches in thickness. These ashes must have been thrown 

 from a distance, for recently, when a well was being 

 sunk at Jesetepe, twenty miles from the nearest crater, 

 the same bed was perforated and was found to be more 

 than fifteen inches in thickness. It corresponds to a 

 great period of volcanic activity which appears to have 

 profoundly altered the surface outline of the soil. It is 

 supposed that at this epoch the lake of Nicaragua was 

 finally separated from the ocean. 



The eruption, or series of eruptions, which left these 

 traces must have been preceded by a period of repose, 

 during which the waters have deposited a compact layer 

 of clay. At the point where explorations have been 

 tried its thickness does not exceed one foot, but at other 

 points very near it reaches a much greater thickness, 

 ten to twelve feet. This deposit is characterised by 

 numerous fossilised plants and by bones of the mastodon, 

 the only mammalian animal which has been found to be 



II 11 Human Footprint. 



no tradition of their meaning has survived. The Indians 

 cannot (or will not ?) understand them, and no data exist 

 to show at what epoch they may have originated. 



Among the volcanoes now extinct must be counted that 

 of Tizcapa ; its eruptions have become irregular and 

 are separated by intervals of quiet sufficiently prolonged 

 to allow luxuriant vegetation to spring up upon the 

 deposits of lava and tufa which are slowly decomposing. 

 Of this the vegetable remains which have been found in 

 several successive strata furnish a sufficient proof. At 

 the arrival of the conquestadores, tranquillity had pre- 

 vailed for ages, if we may judge from the almost 

 impenetrable forests which they describe as covering all 

 the shores of the lake. 



The human footprints have been discovered in one of the 

 strata just mentioned, not far from the town of Managua, 

 at a distance of 300 feet from the lake, and at a depth of 

 twenty-one feet. Below the bed of humus formed by the 

 accumulating detritus of the forest, there are found four 

 successive layers of compact tufa, separated by thin beds 

 of sand. The last of these strata has become a true lime- 

 stone, which the inhabitants still make use of at the present 



present. Beneath this clay we find anew successive 

 beds of agglomerates, of pumice, of vegetable mould, of 

 sand, and of volcanic rocks. It is in the upper crust of 

 the latter of these deposits, a layer of tufa forty-seven 

 inches in thickness, that human footprints have been 

 found. Below the tufa is a bed of yellow sand of un- 

 known thickness, containing numerous small shells, which 

 the American conchybiologists are disposed to refer to the 

 quaternary epoch. 



The human footprints are numerous, and cross each 

 other in all directions. Some of them are very slight 

 whilst others are deeper, having doubtless been im- 

 pressed while the soil was still plastic. Some fragments 

 of fossil leaves lie here and there ; they have not been 

 exactly determined, but they evidently belong to a flora 

 completely different from that of the clay deposit. 



The longest foot-mark measures ten inche"? ; that which 

 we show in the figure (taken from La Nature) is only 

 9i inches long, 3 inches in width and 4J inches across 

 the toes; judging from these measurements the length of 

 the foot should not exceed 8 inches. We must bear in 

 mind that the earth in its plastic condition would give 



