In not a few places in our own country and on the Continent, rough misshapen marks on rocks and stones, bearing a fanciful resemblance to the outline of the human foot, have been supposed by popular superstition to have been made by Satan.  Every classical student is familiar with the account which Herodotus gives of the print of Hercules shown by the Scythians in his day upon a rock near the river Tyras, the modern Dnieper.  It was said to resemble the footstep of a man, only that it was two cubits long.  He will also recall the description given by the same gossipy writer of the Temple of Perseus in the Thebaic district of Egypt, in which a sandal worn by the god, two cubits in length, occasionally made its appearance as a token of the visit of Perseus to the earth, and a sign of prosperity to the land.  Pythagoras measured similar footprints at Olympia, and calculated “ex pede Herculem”!  Still more famous was the mark on the volcanic rock on the shore of Lake Regillus—­the scene of the memorable battle in which the Romans, under the dictator Posthumius, defeated the powerful confederation of the Latin tribes under the Tarquins.  According to tradition, the Roman forces were assisted by Castor and Pollux, who helped them to achieve their signal victory.  The mark was supposed to have been left by the horse of one of the great twins “who fought so well for Rome,” as Macaulay says in his spirited ballad.  On the way to the famous convent of Monte Casino, very near the door, there is a cross in the middle of the road.  In front of it a grating covers the mark of a knee, which is said to have been left in the rock by St. Benedict, when he knelt there to ask a blessing from heaven before laying the foundation-stone of his convent.  As the site of the monastery was previously occupied by a temple of Apollo, and a grove sacred to Venus, where the inhabitants of the surrounding locality worshipped as late as the sixth century,—­to which circumstance Dante alludes,—­it is probable that the sacred mark on the rock may have belonged to the old pagan idolatry, and have been a cup-marked stone connected with sacrificial libations.

On many rocks of the United States of America may be seen human footprints, either isolated or connected with other designs belonging to the pictorial system of the Aborigines, and commemorating incidents which they thought worthy of being preserved.  In the collection of the Smithsonian Museum are three large stone slabs having impressions of the human foot.  On two slabs of sandstone, carefully cut from rocks on the banks of the Missouri, may be seen respectively two impressions of feet, carved apparently with moccasins, such as are worn at the present day by the Sioux and other Indians.  The other specimen is a flat boulder of white quartz, obtained in Gasconade County, Missouri, which bears on one of its sides the mark of a naked foot, each toe being distinctly scooped out and indicated.  The footmark is surrounded by a number of cup-shaped