• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1255 0

al. 1982, p. 94). It is thought that the first animals capable of walking erect, the pseudosuchian thecodonts, appeared around 210 million years ago (Desmond 1976, p. 86). These lizardlike creatures, capable of running on their hind legs, would not have left any tail marks since they carried their tails aloft. But their feet did not look at all like those of human beings; rather they resembled those of birds. Scientists say the first appearance of apelike beings was not until around 37 million years ago, and it was not until around 4 million years ago that most scientists would expect to find footprints anything like those reported by Burroughs from the Carboniferous of Kentucky.

Burroughs (1938, p. 46) stated: “The footprints are sunk into the horizontal surface of an outcrop of hard, massive grey sandstone on the O. Finnell farm. There are three pairs of tracks showing left and right footprints. . . . Each footprint has five toes and a distinct arch. The toes are spread apart like those of a human being who has never worn shoes.” Kent Previette (1953) wrote: “Scientists and travelers who have seen the tracks which he [Burroughs] proved to be genuine, or studied photographs of them, state that they resemble those of the most primitive people of the Andes, the aboriginal Chinese, and the South Sea islanders—all being people who have never worn shoes.”

Giving more details about the prints, Burroughs (1938, p. 46) stated: “The length of the foot from the heel to the end of the longest toe is nine and one-half inches though this length varies slightly in different tracks. The width across the ball of the foot is 4.1 inches while the width including the spread of the toes is about six inches. The foot curves back like a human foot to a human appearing heel.” These humanlike tracks are thus quite distinct, unlike the more famous but indistinct Paluxy “man tracks” reported in Biblical creationist literature.

David L. Bushnell, an ethnologist with the Smithsonian Institution suggested the prints were carved by Indians (Science News Letter 1938a, p. 372). In ruling out this hypothesis, Dr. Burroughs (1938, pp. 46–47) used a microscope to study the prints and noted: “The sand grains within the tracks are closer together than the sand grains of the rock just outside the tracks due to the pressure of the creatures’ feet. Even the sand grains in the arch of one of the best preserved tracks are not as close together as in the heel of the same track, though closer together than the sand outside the track. This is because there was more pressure upon the heel than beneath the arch of the foot. In comparing the texture of sandstone only the same kind of grains and combinations of grains within and outside of the tracks are considered. The sandstone adjacent to many of the tracks is uprolled due to the damp, loose sand having been pushed up around the foot as the foot sank into the sand. The forward part of one track is covered by solid Pottsville sandstone only a few days or weeks younger than the sandstone in which is the track. Another track nearby is also partially covered by solid Pottsville sandstone of the Coal Age.” These facts led Burroughs to conclude that the humanlike footprints were formed by compression in the soft, wet sand before it consolidated into rock some 300 million years ago.

Two doctors from the town of Berea, Alson Baker and A. F. Cornelius, also counted the sand grains per unit area under magnification and arrived at the same result as had Dr. Burroughs. They reported: “We examined the arrangement of the sand grains in the deepest portions of the prints, with special attention to the heels. The sand grains in the bottoms of the prints were much more closely packed than those in the slopes, and those in the slopes were more closely packed than those in the rock an inch from the margins of the prints, or at any other point. Each member of the party certified and checked these findings and we all agree that the imprints were made by pressure when the sand was soft and wet. The fact that the sand grains in the bottoms