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ORNITHICHNOLOGY DEFENDED.

BY PROF. EDWARD HITCHCOCK.

I was taught by my parents to receive with reverence and thankfulness, and in silence, the rebukes and corrections of my superiors. And perhaps I ought thus to listen to the remarks of a correspondent of the Knickerbocker for June, concerning my ornithichnology, my bad Greek, and sundry other misdemeanors. I have come to the conclusion, however - perhaps the result of early disadvantages' — that the principles of casuistry will allow me to say a few things in arrest of public judgment. For in the first place, my conscience pleads not guilty to most of this writer's charges: and in the second place, until he dares to give his name to the public, I cannot tell how much deference I ought to pay to his judgment or intentions.

The ancients thought that man fortunate, who had either faithful friends, or severe enemies. It seems, then, on this principle, that I am doubly blessed; for if profession can prove friendship, none can be stronger than my reprover's for me. He not only professes 'respect and reverence,' but declares me to be the man whom he delights to praise.' Yet, if it indicates hostility to misrepresent one's opinions, and to distort and magnify one's mistakes, then, as I shall soon abundantly show, the conclusion can hardly be avoided, that he acts the part of an enemy.

It would certainly be very gratifying to vanity and pride to believe this writer correct in all the favorable things he has said of me. Much as I have been injured, through excess of moderation,' among the critics, I had never before dreamed that my name was enrolled high in the catalogue of naturalists, and incorporated into the literature of the age; nor that my 'productions were quoted as decisive authority.' But it neutralizes the effect of these encomiums, to recollect that the same principles of judgment must be applied to the favorable as to the unfavorable side of the picture; so that if I am able to show that I am not guilty of more than one in ten of the errors which he imputes to me, so I may not take the credit of more than one in ten of the excellencies with which he invests me.

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There is one point my early disadvantages,' being deprived of the advantages of a liberal education' on which the reviewer seems to dwell with peculiar force. But he cannot feel it more deeply than myself. I should call it rather the disadvantages of the whole of my education. And none but he who has felt it, can tell what an incubus it fastens upon the soul. Yet, though such deficiencies may be a reason why a man should never make any public literary effort, he has no right to make them a shield for his blunders nor do I thank the reviewer for offering this apology in my behalf. I may also be permitted to doubt, whether he has pointed out any errors that can fairly be imputed to this cause. Suppose I should be able to show, that in attempting to point out my errors, he has made greater mistakes than he, charges upon me: would he or the public, think it fair for me to retort upon him, by charging his blunders to his 'liberal education,' and to maintain, that had he been obliged to rely upon himself 38

VOL. VIII.

more than upon teachers, he never would have fallen into such mistakes?

Let us now see how far the reviewer has succeeded in the objects he had in view. His great and leading aim, as he announces it, is to give me a timely monition that the eye of the critic is upon me, and will expose the errors and fallacies of his favorite,' in order that I may 'give more heed to my composition, and weigh more accurately my conclusions in science.' In doing this, he supposes he has accomplished several subordinate objects. The first was to demolish my whole system of ornithichnology, and to convert my bird-tracks into septaria and stria.' This he had a perfect right to do, if he could;. and, indeed, in my memoir on that subject, I stated that the presumption derived from geological analogies is decidedly opposed to the facts and inferences which I have presented and hence I expect that geologists, as they ought, will receive these statements and conclusions, not without hesitation and strong suspicions that I may have been deceived: but I shall be happy to be corrected whenever I am erroneous, even in my fundamental conclusions.'*

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Let us try the strength of the reviewer's objections to my views.

The first is, 'the immense depth of rock in which they occur.' Here he has made a quotation from my memoir, which, insulated from what precedes and follows, conveys the idea that these impressions have actually been dug out from such a depth: whereas they have not been found in any place more than ten feet below the actual surface. It is only a theoretical inference that strata several hundred feet thick once covered these spots. But admit this to be true: and what shadow of an objection does it present against my conclusions? For since all the rock was formed by mechanical deposition, there was a time when the deepest layer constituted the surface; and the water over it might have been shallow enough to allow the long-legged grallæ to impress its bottom.

The second objection is, that the cavity of the track is filled with a silicious concretion.' Here again my memoir is quoted as if this were always the case; whereas it is there stated to be true only in a few cases. But what if it were always thus? The reviewer, who professes to be familiar with the sand-stone of the valley of Connecticut river, must know that some portions of that rock are harder than others, and that this is often the case with those masses that occupy former cavities in it. And why the depression made by an animal's foot might not sometimes be thus filled, so as to be somewhat more firmly concreted than the rock in general, I am wholly unable to conceive.

The third objection is, that the impression extends up as well as down, often passing obliquely through the rock.' This fact is exactly what we might expect, as I have endeavored to show in my memoir, if these impressions were made by birds on mud; and until some argument is adduced, beside the mere ipse dixit of this writer, to disprove my reasoning, I have a right to consider it sound.

The hairy or bristly appendage that seems to have belonged to some of the animals which made these impressions, proves, either that they were not grallæ, or that the grallæ of the sand-stone days differed in

* Journal of Science, vol. 29. pp. 338 and 340.

this respect from those that now inhabit the globe; but it does not prove that the impressions are not the tracks of birds.

The reviewer has given an entirely erroneous view of the plates accompanying my memoir, for which, it seems to me, he can offer no apology, since my statements are very explicit. I gave one plate which exhibits a comparative view of all the varieties of these foot-marks, not drawn from any one set of specimens, but presenting the results of all my observations on the subject. And this writer represents this to be the case with all the plates; so that nothing can be learnt from them, since they are the work of imagination. But the two other plates I have particularly described as drawn from specimens, most of which are now in my possession. To give drawings on the same principle as the comparative view, is very common among geologists; as any one may see by looking into Cuvier's Ossemens Fossiles, where he will often find restitué' written under complete skeletons, only a few bones of which were ever discovered.

Still more inexcusable is the reviewer's statement that my ornithichnites giganteus had only two toes; for I have not only explicitly stated that it has three, but have given a plate of the natural size, in which the three toes, almost as large as a man's arm, are exhibited. One would hardly believe that he had read my article at all, but had undertaken to criticize it from hearsay.

The finishing stroke for the demolition of the ornithichnites, is supposed by the reviewer to be given, by a new theory to explain them. He supposes them to be septaria and striæ, often mistaken for impressions presenting the most fantastic figures and shapes, of which the ornithichnites of the professor probably compose one family, the gigantic gorgonia of eighteen feet by ten of his Geolog. Rep. Mass., (p. 237,) another, etc.' To reason against such an absurd opinion as this, would be lost labor, for it only requires a single glance at the birdtracks, and the 'septaria and stria,' to be satisfied, that hardly any two things can be more unlike. I have seen multitudes of what I suppose the reviewer means by 'septaria and stria,' and I declare that they are entirely different from the ornithichnites; and I have little doubt but if he will take the trouble just to look at my specimens of the latter in the cabinet of Amherst College, or even at the casts, of some of them, which he will find in the Lyceum of Natural History in New-York, or in the Yale College cabinet, or in the rooms of the Boston Natural History Society, the view would annihilate this hypothesis, even in his own mind. These casts, I confess, do but very poor justice to the originals; but if he will come to this place, (incog. if he chooses,) I shall take pleasure in showing him a broad table, fifteen feet long, entirely covered with them. And here let me ask, did not candor require that he should have got sight of at least one fair specimen, before publishing to the world an array of arguments and mis-statements, which will operate to my prejudice abroad, but which - every one of them will be seen to be of no weight, the moment an individual inspects the specimens. I travelled more than five hundred miles, and spent nearly all my leisure time for more than six months, in the examination of these specimens; and although I was ultimately obliged to write my memoir on the subject in so short a time that I could not give all the attention that was desirable to literary niceties, yet the principal state

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ments and conclusions in that paper were made with great care, and a scrupulous regard to accuracy. Therein, I invited geologists to inspect my specimens, in order to test the correctness of my conclusions. Yet this reviewer does not think it necessary to wait till he can judge by ocular inspection; but expects, with a dash of his pen, to demolish the fabric which cost me long and severe labor to build. Let him who reads, and especially him who has seen an ornithichnite, judge whether he has succeeded.

And this is not all. He means, in the same sweep, to annihilate my gigantic gorgonia of eighteen feet by four-not ten, as he incorrectly states. Here again, I can only say, come and see. Whether I am right or not, in referring this fossile to gorgonia, of one thing every one who examines the specimens will be satisfied viz: that it can neither be referred to septaria' nor 'stria.'

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The next step of the reviewer carries him to the very climax of absurdity on this subject. He says that the silicious (they are calcareous) concretions,' in the tertiary clay beds of the Connecticut valley, present appearances precisely similar in character to those described' by me. Truly, he must have a very accurate idea of my ornithichnites, or gorgonia, if he supposes them precisely similar to the clay stones of that valley. For if I were to search through the kingdom of nature for an object of comparison, the last one I should select would be these 'concretions.'

The reviewer will do me the credit to believe, that I find it full as great a load as I wish to bear, to be obliged to shoulder my own errors, and defend my own opinions. He will not think it strange, if I complain, when charged with those of other people, as he has done, when he represents it as one of my 'extravagancies' that I believe Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke were once united, and that the pass between them has been excavated by the waters of the Connecticut, or by the currents of a primitive lake. And to prove this to be my opinion, he has referred to the topographical part of the first edition of my Geological Report, where I merely alluded to this opinion, without going into a discussion of its merits. Whereas, had he turned to the scientific part of the same work, he would have found (p. 140, second edition,) that I have devoted several paragraphs to a refutation of this opinion and I could call several hundred young gentlemen, graduates of Amherst College, and now scattered throughout the land, to prove, that for the last ten years, I have been in the habit of devoting the greater part of a lecture to the same object. Why, then, am I charged with defending this opinion? Just because the reviewer has undertaken to criticize my writings, without having carefully read them.

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Such are my geological peccancies: and I assure the reviewer that they are mere peccadillos, compared with what he might have found in my writings on geology, had he carefully read them: or had he, to save time, inquired of me, I should have cheerfully furnished him with much more glaring examples of my extravagancies,' want of accuracy,' and 'early disadvantages.' So that if my writings are likely to be condemned by the tribunal of the public, in consequence of this effort of the reviewer, à fortiori, they would fall under the ban of the literary world, were a more thorough adversary to assail them, or should I become my own accuser. If, however, my ornithichnites should take wing, as the reviewer supposes, I am quite sure they will

be accompanied by his septaria,' and 'stria,' and 'silicious concretions,' to that place described by Milton:

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'All these upwhirl'd aloft,

Flew o'er the backside of the world, far off,
Into a limbo large and wide; since called
The paradise of fools; to few unknown
Long after.

*

All the unaccomplish'd works of nature's hands,
Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mix'd,

Dissolv'd on earth, fleet hither; and in vain,
Till final dissolution, wander here:

Not in the neighboring moon, as some have dream'd.'

Now for my blunders in Greek. The fatal sentence that makes the reviewer 'tremble for our reputation and our language,' is the following: I include all the varieties of tracks under the term ornithichnites, (oprio and Tipvoo) signifying stony bird tracks.' Here he declares that my precipitancy and unpardonable haste' have betrayed me into no less than four egregious blunders.' Let us examine them seriatim. The first is the use of the medial s at the end of ornis, instead of the final.' Here, alas! either I or the printer must plead guilty and as the manuscript is lost, I cannot charge it upon him; and so I must sustain this dreadful load of literary guilt. Ashes of Plato, Isocrates, and Demosthenes! I know that you, like the reviewer, tremble and groan in your lowly beds, at so great an outrage upon your beloved language! Had it been a common writer who had thus indecently made the tail of a sigma to frisk in its neighbor's face, it might have been tolerable but it was one whose productions are quoted as decisive authority,' and therefore this usurper must maintain henceforth its terminal position. Justly, then, must I be doomed, for the time to come, to have my imagination haunted with that terminal caudal sigma, and to hear the classic world groaning under the incurable wound. But I am not without consolation, if it be consolation in misery to have a companion. For in the first line of the paragraph in which the reviewer points out my error, he has committed the same. If he attempts to escape, by saying that he used the final sigma only to show my mistake, then I inquire, why he did not do the same in the next line, where he points out the next blunder in τιχνος?

This terminal sigma in ugros, constitutes my second egregious blunder. The third is, the use of rivos for gros, there being no such word in the Greek language as Txvos.' The charge here is, if I understand it, that I have coined a new Greek word. And if it be indeed true, that my 'decisive authority' has done this, what immense labor will it impose upon the lexicographers! - for what with the new word, and what with the caudal sigma, they can never be satisfied, until new editions of their works are published. But seriously: what if, following the example of the reviewer, I should quote from his article, where the Hebrew letter vau is written van, and gravely inform the reader that no such letter exists in the Hebrew alphabet ?-leaving it to be inferred that he had coined a new one; or refer to his pachydactyli for pachydactyli, as proof that he had formed a new Greek word? Would not every candid man see that these are press errors, for which probably the printer was more in fault than the author. And would not the noble-minded be apt to apply to the critic, who should thus bring

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