NATURE'S HIEROGLYPHICS. 



39 



NATURE'S HIEROGLYPHICS. 



By Dh. RICHARD S. LULL, 



MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, AMHERST, MA.-S. 



/^\ XE of the loveliest parts of all New England is the broad valley 

 ^S of the Connecticut River, of deep human interest because of its 

 having been the theater of many of the conflicts during the struggle 

 for existence between the white settlers and the aborigines, and occa- 

 sionally one comes across a monument whose inscription tells of the 

 fierce engagements of colonial days. More numerous still are the 

 records of an earlier race, not in this instance of mankind, but of 

 creatures far antedating man in antiquity, which have left involuntary 

 inscriptions on the rocks. 



Part of the Amherst College Museum. 

 The long slab shows six successive tracks of a tail-dragging carnivorous dinosaur. 



For nearly a century these impressions have been observed by the 

 good folk of the valley, though as many of them had to the uncritical 

 eye the familiar appearance of bird tracks, they were considered as such, 

 and to those who were unaware of their vast antiquity they were un- 

 doubtedly of little interest. As soon, however, as they became known to 

 men who could appreciate their full significance, the impressions were 

 at once recognized as being of great scientific interest, and it is to the 

 efforts of the late President Edward Hitchcock, of Amherst College, 



