No. 112.] 53 



Journal, from the pen of Professor David Dale Owen ( the donor 

 of the specimen ). The great length of the article precludes our 

 copying of it entire. 



" The occurrence of representations of human feet in solid rock, has 

 lately excited considerable attention, both in this country and in Europe. 

 The intimate connection of the subject with those great problems, the age 

 of our race, and the gradual peopling of our globe with animated beings, 

 invests it with additional interest, in the eyes not only of the scientific 

 explorer, but of the general reader also. 



"Mr. Schoolcraft, in the year 1822, first called attention, through 

 the columns of Silliman's Journal, to these impressions ; the German Pro- 

 fessor Leonhard, of Heidelberg, discusses the matter in his popular 

 lectures, now in the course of republication in this country, by Professor 

 F. Hall ; Dr. Mantell, in his " Wonders of Geology," also speaking 

 of the same foot-prints, says that he has requested Professor Silliman to 

 ascertain the nature and age of the rock in which they appear ; and a cor- 

 respondent, in a recent number of this (Silliman's) journal, calls for 

 information on the same subject. 



" These various observations and enquiries, and all others of a similar 

 character which have met my eye, expressly refer to a single specimen ; 

 the only one, it would seem, hitherto discovered; namely, a slab of lime- 

 stone originally found on the western bank of the Mississippi river at St. 

 Louis, quarried for Mr. Frederick Rapp in the year 1819, and by him 

 removed to the German settlement of Harmony in Indiana, where it 

 became a frequent object of visit and examination among curious travelers. 

 There Schoolcraft saw and described it ; his article, above referred to 

 {and from which Mantell tells us he derives his information), com- 

 mences thus ^ 



" ' I send you a drawing of two curious prints of the human foot in lime- 

 stone rock, observed by me last summer at Harmony, on the Wabash ; 

 together with a letter of Col. Benton on the same subject. The slab 

 'Containing these impressions was originally quarried on the west bank of 

 the Mississippi river at St. Louis, and belongs to the older floetz range of 

 limestone, which pervades that country to a very great extent.' Leon- 

 hard, as a note by his editor reminds us, refers, also, as his sole authority, 

 to the article here quoted, and of course to the specimen in question. 

 That specimen is now in my possession ; and inasmuch as it has attracted 

 the observation even of foreign geologists, and has given rise to not a little 

 discussion and contrariety of opinion among scientific men, I feel called on 

 to contribute what information I possess relative to its history and de- 



