204 



ON AN ERRON-EOUS STATEMENT OF THE OCCURRENCE 

 OE NATURAL HUMAN EOOTPRINTS IN THE PALAEOZOIC 

 BOCKS. 



To the Editor of the Geologist. 



My deae Sie, 



In 1822^' Mr. Schoolcraft figured and described a block of lime- 

 stone, bearing two prints of human feet, from the western bank of 

 the Mississippi at St. Louis, and wrote regarding them thus : These 

 impressions were made at a time when the rock was soft enough to 

 receive them by pressure, and the marks of the feet are natural and 

 genuine." He added, however, that Col. Renton considered them to 

 have been the result of human labour," and probably belonging to 

 the same period as that when the mounds in the neighbourhood of St. 

 Louis were raised. 1 may add, from Dr. D, D. Owen's statement, that 

 Messrs. Maclure, Say, Troost, and Lesueur agreed as to the artificial 

 origin of the prints. 



The late Dr. Mantell introduced into some editions of his "Wonders 

 of Geology" an account of these footprints; illustrating them with a 

 woodcut, — accepting the hypothesis of their having been naturally pro- 

 duced, — and erroneously terming the rock " sandstone." 



In 1842f Dr. David Dale Owen, having obtained possession of this 

 slab of stone, and being desirous of explaining its true character, care- 

 fully examined it, and found that it contained fossils of the mountain- 

 limestone age, and that " the impressions in question are not fossils, 

 but an intaglio, of artificial origin." Dr. Owen also freely, and with 

 justice, criticised Dr. Mantell's remarks on the specimen ; and he referred 

 to Leonhard's cautious notice of the same slab. 



In the sixth edition of the '' Wonders," X in 1848, Dr. Mantell in- 

 timated that he no longer used these sculptured footprints as evidence 

 of the early existence of man on the earth, since Dr. D. D. Owen had 

 proved them to be artificial. 



In a little book entitled " Voices from the Rocks, "lately published, I 

 have seen, to my surprise, a woodcut of these footprints, which, copied 

 from the suppressed illustration once used by Dr. Mantell, is unscrupu- 

 lously brought forward as an established evidence of the geological 

 antiquity of man. 



Now, Mr. Editor, what is to be thought of any one, writing on 

 geology at the present day, and pretending to settle a philosophical 

 question by reference to facts, who produces as geological evidence a 

 well-known misconception, which had actually been ignored by the 

 very author from one of the older editions of whose work this second- 

 hand writer, without the least examination or research, borrows it as 

 the basis for his chief argument in support of the untenable hypothesis 

 of the existence of man in the palaeozoic period ? 



For my part, being interested in the scientific reputation of my late 

 friend, Dr. Mantell, and in that of his works, some of which I have had 



* American Journal of Science, toI. v., p. 223, &c. 

 t American Journal of Science, vol. xliii., p. 14, &c. 

 % Vol. ii., p. 90, note. 



