[Illustration: Engraved by J. Sartain.—From a original Talbotype. 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,