belonged to the old pagan
idolatry, and have been a cup-marked stone connected with sacrificial
libations.

On many rocks of the United States of America may be seen human
footprints, either isolated or connected with other designs belonging
to the pictorial system of the Aborigines, and commemorating incidents
which they thought worthy of being preserved. In the collection of the
Smithsonian Museum are three large stone slabs having impressions of
the human foot. On two slabs of sandstone, carefully cut from rocks on
the banks of the Missouri, may be seen respectively two impressions of
feet, carved apparently with moccasins, such as are worn at the
present day by the Sioux and other Indians. The other specimen is a
flat boulder of white quartz, obtained in Gasconade County, Missouri,
which bears on one of its sides the mark of a naked foot, each toe
being distinctly scooped out and indicated. The footmark is surrounded
by a number of cup-shaped depressions. In many parts of Dacotah, where
the route is difficult to find, rocks occur with human footprints
carved upon them which were probably meant to serve as geographical
landmarks--as they invariably indicate the best route to some Indian
encampment or to the shallow parts of some deep river. Among other
places these footprints have been met with on the Blue Mountains
between Georgia and North Carolina, and also on the Kenawha River.
Some stir was made two years ago by the reported discovery of the
prints of human feet in a stone quarry on the coast of Lake Managua in
Nicaragua. The footprints are remarkably sharp and distinct; one seems
that of a little child. The stone in which they are impressed is a
spongy volcanic tuff, and the layer superimposed upon them in the
quarry was of similar material. These prehistoric footprints were
doubtless accidentally impressed upon the volcanic stone, and would
seem to throw back the age of man on the earth to a most remote
antiquity. In Equatorial Africa footprints have also been found, and
are associated with the folklore of the country. Stanley, in his _Dark
Continent_, tells us that in the legendary history of Uganda, Kimera,
the third in descent from Ham, was so large and heavy that he made
marks in the rocks wherever he trod. The impression of one of his feet
is shown at Uganda on a rock near the capital, Ulagolla. It was made
by one of his feet slipping while he was in the act of hurling his
spear at an elephant. In the S