58 [Senate 



sion, that the impressions in question are not fossils, but an intaglio of 

 artificial origin. This opinion is based on the following considerations : 



1st. Because the foot-prints are not continuous, but isolated. 



2d. Because ( as it would seem ) this is a solitary instance of human 

 foot-prints in solid limestone. 



3d. Because of the difficulty in conceiving the sudden consolidation of 

 compact limestone rock, after having received, while in a plastic state, 

 such impressions. 



Lastly, and chiefly, because of the age, nature, and position of the 

 rock, and because no human remains whatever have hitherto been dis- 

 covered in any similar formation. 



" The isolated position of our foot-prints affords a strong presumption 

 against their fossil origin ; and we can hardly imagine under what cir- 

 cumstances a man could impress, thus evenly and naturally, a single pair 

 of foot-prints on a soft and yielding surface, without leaving thereon other 

 traces of his steps. 



"The limestone stratum containing them is not a partial bed, but an 

 extensive layer, necessarily deposited at one and the same time. There 

 seems, therefore, every probability that other foot-marks would have been 

 discovered on adjacent parts of the rock, had those under consideration 

 been actually made by human feet in plastic calcareous matter. 



"If the specimen in my possession be unique of its kind, that circum- 

 stance also is strong evidence against its fossil origin ; and it would appear 

 that it is so. Every writer, American or European, who treats of impres- 

 sions of human tracks in solid rock, alludes to the specimen which forms 

 the subject of the present article : all expressly referring to the St. Louis 

 locality, and apparently unacquainted with any other. Yet we have already 

 seen, that in that vicinity, none but the foot-prints in my possession have 

 been discovered. 



"But all these arguments are weak, compared with that based on the 

 origin, position and age of the rock under consideration, and on the fact, 

 that no human remains of any description have ever been discovered in 

 any similar formation. 



"We have ascertained that the organic remains taken from the slab 

 itself are marine shells. We find, moreover, that it is overlaid by other 

 beds of limestone containing fossils, also the former inhabitants of an 

 ancient ocean. The inference is inevitable, that these various beds were 

 deposited at the bottom of the sea. But unless we imagine the stratnm con- 

 taining the foot marks to have been raised from the bed of the ocean, 

 while still in a plastic state, to have received the impress of the human foot. 



