Except that they're a little longish, they look like prints of hoofs of
horses--or, rather, of colts.
But they're in a single line.
It is said that the marks from which the sketch was made were 8 inches
apart, and that this spacing was regular and invariable "in every
parish." Also other towns besides those named in the _Times_ are
mentioned. The writer, who had spent a winter in Canada, and was
familiar with tracks in snow, says that he had never seen "a more
clearly defined track." Also he brings out the point that was so
persistently disregarded by Prof. Owen and the other correlators--that
"no known animal walks in a line of single footsteps, not even man."
With these wider inclusions, this writer concludes with us that the
marks were not footprints. It may be that his following observation hits
upon the crux of the whole occurrence:
That whatever it may have been that had made the marks, it had removed,
rather than pressed, the snow.
According to his observations the snow looked "as if branded with a hot
iron."
_Illustrated London News_, March 3, 1855-214:
Prof. Owen, to whom a friend had sent drawings of the prints, writes
that there were claw-marks. He says that the "track" was made by "a"
badger.
Six other witnesses sent letters to this number of the _News_. One
mentioned, but not published, is a notion of a strayed swan. Always this
homogeneous-seeing--"a" badger--"a" swan--"a" track. I should have
listed the other towns as well as those mentioned in the _Times_.
A letter from Mr. Musgrave is published. He, too, sends a sketch of the
prints. It, too, shows a single line. There are four prints, of which
the third is a little out of line.
There is no sign of a claw-mark.
The prints look like prints of longish hoofs of a very young colt, but
they are not so definitely outlined as in the sketch of February 24th,
as if drawn after disturbance by wind, or after thawing had set in.
Measurements at places a mile and a half apart, gave the same
inter-spacing--"exactly eight inches and a half apart."
We now have a little study in the psychology and genesis of an attempted
correlation. Mr. Musgrave says: "I found a very apt opportunity to
mention the name 'kangaroo' in allusion to the report then current." He
says that he had no faith in the kangaroo-story himself, but was glad
"that a kangaroo was in the wind," because it opposed "a dangerous,
degrading, and false impression that it was the devil."
"Mine was a word in season and did good."
Whether it's Jesuitical or not, and no matter what it is or isn't, that
is our own acceptance: that, though we've often been carried away from
this attitude controversially, that is our acceptance as to every
correlate of the past that has been considered in this book--relatively
to the Dominant of its era.
Another correspondent writes that, though the prints in all cases
resembled hoof marks, there were indistinct traces of claws--that "an"
otter had made the marks. After that many other witnesses wrote to the
_News_. The correspondence was so great that, in the issue of March
10th, only a selection could be given. There's "a" jumping-rat solution
and "a" hopping-toad inspiration, and then someone came out strong with
an idea of "a" hare that had galloped with pairs of feet held close
together, so as to make impressions in a single line.
London _Times_, March 14, 1840:
"Among the high mountains of that elevated district where Glenorchy,
Glenlyon and Glenochay are contiguous, there have been met with several
times, during this and also the former winter, upon the snow, the tracks
of an animal seemingly unknown at present in Scotland. The print, in
every respect, is an exact resemblance to that of a foal of considerable
size, with this small difference, perhaps, that the sole seems a little
longer, or not so round; but as no one has had the good fortune as yet
to have obtained a glimpse of this creature, nothing more can be said of
its shape or dimensions; only it has been remarked, from the depth to
which the feet sank in the snow, that it must be a beast of considerable
size. It has been observed also that its walk is not like that of the
generality of quadrupeds, but that it is more like the bounding or
leaping of a horse when scared or pursued. It is not in one locality
that its tracks have been met with, but through a range of at least
twelve miles."
In the _Illustrated London News_, March 17, 1855, a correspondent from
Heidelberg writes, "upon the authority of a Polish Doctor of Medicine,"
that on the Piashowa-gora (Sand Hill) a small elevation on the border of
Galicia, but in Russian Poland, such marks are to be seen in the snow
every year, and sometimes in the sand of this hill, and "are attributed
by the inhabitants to supernatural influences."