Artifacts & Documents: Printed Material

"Report on Ichnolithology, or Fossil Footmarks...", American Journal of Science, October 1844

zoomable artifact image here

Dig Deeper

Although this article was ostensibly about coprolites and ichnolithology, Edward Hitchcock used it to further defend his case in his priority dispute with James Deane in Volume 47 of the American Journal of Science in 1844. This article ran on pages 292-322, but the dispute proper was laid out in three successive articles on pages 381-401. Hitchcock studiously avoided mentioning Deane, building his case that many other men had seen the fossil footmarks before Deane had. The frustrated Deane fulminated that he had never thought himself the first merely to see the tracks, but the first to theorize about their origins in writing.

Creator:
Edward and Orra White Hitchcock
Date:
1844
Courtesy of:
Archive.Org