CHAP. XXXVII.] SCULPTUKED FOOT-PRINTS. 313 



Alleghany Mountains to the west, lay precisely in 

 the line of these curious carvings. The toe joints in 

 the feet of the birds thus cut are well indicated, as 

 might have been expected, for the aboriginal hunting 

 tribes of North America were skilful in following 

 the trail of all kinds of game, and are known to have 

 carved in some places on rocks, many rude imita 

 tions of the external forms of animals. If, therefore, 

 they were sometimes tempted to use the representa 

 tion of foot-prints as symbols of the birds or qua 

 drupeds which they hunted, they would be not un 

 likely to give very accurate copies of markings with 

 which they were so familiar. The important obser 

 vations made by Dr. King relatively to the fossil 

 imprints, called the attention of the whole country 

 to the Indian antiquities of comparatively modern 

 date; but the popular notion that there was a con 

 nection between them is wholly erroneous. 



Since the announcement, by Dr. King, in 1844, 

 of the proofs of the existence of reptiles at the period 

 when the coal strata of Pennsylvania were formed, 

 Professor Goldfuss, of Bonn, has published the de 

 scription of more than one saurian found in the 

 ancient coal-measures of Saarbruck, near Treves. 



Never, certainly, in the history of science, were 

 discoveries made more calculated to put us on our 

 guard for the future against hasty generalisations 

 founded on mere negative evidence. Geologists have 

 been in the habit of taking for granted, that at 

 epochs anterior to the coal there were no birds or 

 air-breathing quadrupeds in existence ; and it seems 

 still scarcely possible to dispel the hypothesis that 



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