The Foot-Prints of the Creator

Part 1

Gould & Lincoln, Boston]

THE FOOT-PRINTS OF THE CREATOR: OR, THE ASTEROLEPIS OF STROMNESS.

BY HUGH MILLER, AUTHOR OF “THE OLD RED SANDSTONE,” ETC.

“When I asked him how this earth could have been repeopled if ever it had undergone the same fate it was threatened with by the comet of 1680, he answered,—‘that required the power of a Creator.’”—Conduit’s “Conversation with Sir Isaac Newton”.

FROM THE THIRD LONDON EDITION.

WITH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR BY LOUIS AGASSIZ.

BOSTON: GOULD AND LINCOLN. 69 WASHINGTON STREET. NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY. CINCINNATI: GEO. S. BLANCHARD. 1868.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by GOULD, KENDALL AND LINCOLN, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

TO SIR PHILIP DE MALPAS GREY EGERTON, BART. M.P., F.R.S. & G.S.

To you, Sir, as our highest British authority on fossil fishes, I take the liberty of dedicating this little volume. In tracing the history of Creation, as illustrated in that ichthyic division of the vertebrata which is at once the most ancient and the most extensively preserved, I have introduced a considerable amount of fact and observation, for the general integrity of which my appeal must lie, not to the writings of my friends the geologists, but to the strangely significant record inscribed in the rocks, which it is their highest merit justly to interpret and faithfully to transcribe. The ingenious and popular author whose views on Creation I attempt controverting, virtually carries his appeal from science to the want of it. I would fain adopt an opposite course: And my use, on this occasion, of your name, may serve to evince the desire which I entertain that the collation of my transcripts of hitherto uncopied portions of the geologic history with the history itself, should be in the hands of men qualified, by original vigor of faculty and the patient research of years, either to detect the erroneous or to certify the true. Further, I feel peculiar pleasure in availing myself of the opportunity furnished me, by the publication of this little work, of giving expression to my sincere respect for one who, occupying a high place in society, and deriving his descent from names illustrious in history, has wisely taken up the true position of birth and rank in an enlightened country and age; and who, in asserting, by his modest, persevering labors, his proper standing in the scientific world, has rendered himself first among his countrymen in an interesting department of Natural Science, to which there is no aristocratic or “royal road.”

I have the honor to be, Sir,

With admiration and respect,

Your obedient humble servant,

HUGH MILLER.

TO THE READER.

There are chapters in this little volume which will, I am afraid, be deemed too prolix by the general reader, and which yet the geologist would like less were there any portion of them away. They refer chiefly to organisms not hitherto figured nor described, and must owe their modicum of value to that very minuteness of detail which, by critics of the merely literary type, unacquainted with fossils, and not greatly interested in them, may be regarded as a formidable defect, suited to overlay the general subject of the work. Perhaps the best mode of compromising the matter may be to intimate, as if by beacon, at the outset, the more repulsive chapters; somewhat in the way that the servants of the Humane Society indicate to the skater who frequents in winter the lakes in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, those parts of the ice on which he might be in danger of losing himself. I would recommend, then, readers not particularly palæontological, to pass but lightly over the whole of my fourth and fifth chapters, with the latter half of the third, marking, however, as they skim the pages, the conclusions at which I arrive regarding the bulk and organization of the extraordinary animal described, and the data on which these are founded. My book, like an Irish landscape dotted with green bogs, has its portions on which it may be perilous for the unpractised surveyor to make any considerable stand, but across which he may safely take his sights and lay down his angles.

It will, I trust, be found, that in dealing with errors which, in at least their primary bearing, affect questions of science, I have not offended against the courtesies of scientific controversy. True, they are errors which also involve moral consequences. There is a species of superstition which inclines men to take on trust whatever assumes the name of science; and which seems to be a reaction on the old superstition, that had faith in witches, but none in Sir Isaac Newton, and believed in ghosts, but failed to credit the Gregorian calendar. And, owing mainly to the wide diffusion of this credulous spirit of the modern type, as little disposed to examine what it receives as its ancient unreasoning predecessor, the development doctrines are doing much harm on both sides of the Atlantic, especially among intelligent mechanics, and a class of young men engaged in the subordinate departments of trade and the law. And the harm, thus considerable in amount, must be necessarily more than merely considerable in degree. For it invariably happens, that when persons in these walks become materialists, they become also turbulent subjects and bad men. That belief in the existence after death, which forms the distinguishing instinct of humanity, is too essential a part of man’s moral constitution not to be missed when away; and so, when once fairly eradicated, the life and conduct rarely fail to betray its absence. But I have not, from any consideration of the mischief thus effected, written as if arguments, like cannon-balls, could be rendered more formidable than in the cool state by being made red-hot. I have not even felt, in discussing the question, as if I had a man before me as an opponent; for though my work contains numerous references to the author of the “Vestiges,” I have invariably thought on these occasions, not of the anonymous writer of the volume, of whom I know nothing, but simply of an ingenious, well-written book, unfortunate in its facts and not always very happy in its reasonings. Further, I do not think that palæontological fact, in its bearing on the points at issue, is of such a doubtful complexion as to leave the geologist, however much from moral considerations in earnest in the matter, any very serious excuse for losing his temper.

In my reference to the three great divisions of the geologic scale, I designate as Palæozoic all the fossiliferous rocks, from the first appearance of organic existence down to the close of the Permian system; all as Secondary, from the close of the Permian system down to the close of the Cretaceous deposits; and all as Tertiary, from the close of the Cretaceous deposits down to the introduction of man. The wood-cuts of the volume, of which at least nine tenths of the whole represent objects never figured before, were drawn and cut by Mr. John Adams of Edinburgh, (8, Heriot Place,) with a degree of care and skill which has left me no reason to regret my distance from the London artists and engravers. So far at least as the objects could be adequately represented on wood, and in the limited space at Mr. Adams’ command, their truth is such that I can safely recommend them to the palæontologist. In the accompanying descriptions, and in my statements of geologic fact in general, it will, I hope, be seen that I have not exaggerated the peculiar features on which I have founded, nor rendered truth partial in order to make it serve a purpose. Where I have reasoned and inferred, the reader will of course be able to judge for himself whether the argument be sound or the deduction just; and to weigh, where I have merely speculated, the probability of the speculation; but as, in at least some of my statements of fact, he might lie more at my mercy, I have striven in every instance to make these adequately representative of the actualities to which they refer. And so, if it be ultimately found that on some occasions I have misled others, it will, I hope, be also seen to be only in cases in which I have been mistaken myself. The first or popular title of my work, “Foot-prints of the Creator,” I owe to Dr. Hetherington, the well-known historian of the Church of Scotland. My other various obligations to my friends, literary and scientific, the reader will find acknowledged in the body of the volume, as the occasion occurs of availing myself of either the information communicated, or the organism, recent or extinct, lent me or given.

HUGH MILLER, AUTHOR OF “OLD RED SANDSTONE” AND “FOOTPRINTS OF THE CREATOR.”

The geological works of Hugh Miller have excited the greatest interest, not only among scientific men, but also among general readers. There is in them a freshness of conception, a power of argumentation, a depth of thought, a purity of feelings, rarely met with in works of that character, which are well calculated to call forth sympathy, and to increase the popularity of a science which has already done so much to expand our views of the Plan of Creation. The scientific illustrations published by Mr. Miller are most happily combined with considerations of a higher order, rendering both equally acceptable to the thinking reader. But what is in a great degree peculiar to our author, is the successful combination of Christian doctrines with pure scientific truths. On that account, his works deserve peculiar attention. His generalizations have nothing of the vagueness which too often characterize the writings of those authors who have attempted to make the results of science subservient to the cause of religion. Struck with the beauty of Mr. Miller’s works, it has for some time past been my wish to see them more extensively circulated in this country; and I have obtained leave from the author to publish an American edition of his “Footprints of the Creator,” for which he has most liberally furnished the publishers with the admirable wood-cuts of the original.

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