of the country at the time.  But regarding those literal human “footprints on the sands of time,” which have been left behind by our prehistoric ancestors, we can make no such accurate scientific inductions.  They have given rise to much speculation, being considered by many persons to be real impressions of human feet, dating from a time when the material on which they were stamped was still in a state of softness.  Superstition has invested them with a sacred veneration, and legends of a wild and mystical character have gathered around them.  The slightest acquaintance with the results of geological research has sufficed to dispel this delusion, and to show that these mysterious marks could not have been produced by human beings while the rocks were in a state of fusion; and consequently no intelligent observer now holds this theory of their origin.  But superstition dies hard; and there are persons who, though confronted with the clearest evidences of science, still refuse to abandon their old obscurantist ideas.  They prefer a supernatural theory that allows free scope to their fancy and religious instinct, to one that offers a more prosaic explanation.  There is a charm in the mystery connected with these dim imaginings which they would not wish dispelled by the clear daylight of scientific knowledge.  In our own country, footmarks on rocks and stones are by no means of unfrequent occurrence.  Some of them, indeed, although associated with myths and fairy tales, have doubtless been produced by natural causes, being the mere chance effects of weathering, without any meaning except to a geologist.  But there are others that have been unmistakably produced by artificial means, and have a human history and significance.

In Scotland Tanist stones—­so called from the Gaelic word tanaiste, a chief, or the next heir to an estate—­have been frequently found.  These stones were used in connection with the coronation of a king or the inauguration of a chief.  The custom dates from the remotest antiquity.  We see traces of it in the Bible,—­as when it is mentioned that “Abimelech was made king by the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem”; and “Adonijah slew sheep and oxen and fat cattle by the stone of Zoheleth, which is by En-rogel, and called all his brethren the king’s sons, and all the men of Judah the king’s servants”; and that when Joash was anointed king by Jehoiada, “the king stood by a pillar, as the manner was”; and again, King Josiah “stood by a pillar” to make a covenant, “and all the people stood to the covenant.”  The stone connected with the ceremony was regarded as the most sacred attestation of the engagement entered into between the newly-elected king or chief and his people.  It was placed in some conspicuous position, upon the top of a “moot-hill,” or the open-air place of assembly.  Upon it was usually carved an impression of a human foot; and into this impression, during the ceremony of inauguration, the king or chief placed his own right foot, in token that he was installed by right into the possessions of his predecessors, and that he would walk in their footsteps.  It may be said literally, that in this way the king or chief came to an understanding with his people; and perhaps the common saying of “stepping into a dead man’s shoes” may have originated from this primitive custom.