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The science writer Edward Dolnick says for scientists and for pretty much everyone else in Western civilization in the early part of the 19th century, the natural world was an orderly place, designed by a benevolent creator or an ingenious clockmaker. All the creatures and plants had a purpose and we humans were positioned front and center. But then things started to shift.

In the spring of 1802, a 12-year-old farm boy was plowing his father's field in South Hadley,

Massachusetts. Dolnick says the kid had a great name, Pliny Moody.

It sounds like a grand and imposing fellow, but he's not.

And he's working for his father plowing the field.

And as he's plowing, the plow has turned up something strange in the dirt.

And he hops down to see what it is.

And he scrapes away a bit of dirt and muck.

And what he sees is a big slab of stone.

And in that stone, there are about a dozen tracks.

Footprints, it looks like.

Each one is about the size of a dinner plate.

They're in a row. They have three toes, it looks like. Each one is about the size of a dinner plate. They're in a row. They have three toes, it looks like. He has never seen anything like this. No one, in fact, has ever seen

anything like this, and no one knows what to make of it.

He managed to dig it up and haul it home.

And there he showed everyone.

And so the locals in town had their best guesses and the reverend in town.

There was a geology professor not terribly far away. Someone, someone, him to have a look at it.

Maybe these were some kind of biblical birds, some enormous bird from the ancient past.

That was the best anyone came up with.

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