|
|
|
Other Shoeprints
It was not until 1930 that Dr. Wilbur Greely Burroughs, head of the geology department at Berea College, performed further and more detailed investigations, this time. Dr. Burroughs discovered a total of twelve 9 1/2-inch mantracks and portions of others, and confirmed that they had indeed been impressed upon Grey Pottsville sandstone dating from the Upper Pennsylvanian period -well over 300 million years old.
In 1948, a shoe impress was discovered near Lake Windermere, England. As reported in the natural history journal The Field for that year, the impress had been made in Ordovician limestone - an unbelievable 500 million years old. Remarkable too is the finding that the print bears signs of craft and artistry: Around the edge of both the heel and the foreshoe are circular impressions which resemble tacking; while in the centre of the sole and heel are faint decorations of linear and flower-like designs. Though the impression is somewhat distorted in shape due to fractures and crevices in the rock surface, a measurement reveals an extended length of the shoe of about 8 inches and a width of 3 1/2 inches.
On June 1, 1968, an amateur rock hunter, William J. Meister, of Kearns, Utah was visiting nearby Antelope Springs with his family. The area, which includes the Swasey Mountains and the Cambrian Wheeler shale formation, is famous for its many fossils, and on this particular day Meister was on the lookout for fossilised trilobites and brachiopods - according to evolutionary theory, once among the oldest known living creatures. Meister broke off a rock slab, and, tapping its edge with a hammer, it fell open in two pieces, like the leaves of a book. To his great surprise, inside was a human sandal print, pointed in the toes, rounded in the heel, and with a squashed trilobite in the centre of the sole. The sandal print measured 10 1/4 inches long, 3 1/2 inches wide at the ball and 3 inches at the heel. The sandal appears to have been well worn on the right side - indicating it had been worn on the right foot - and the heel impression is deeper by one-eighth of an inch, characteristic of the weight distribution of humans on the foot. Dr. Hellmut H. Doelling, of the Utah Geological Survey later examined this particular find, and he found no irregularities or evidence of fakery - the print was genuine.