FOOTMARKS IN STOURTON QUARRY. 43 



Mr. MacLeay has shown to be so necessary: — nor without 

 expressing our regret that the author should have thought it 

 necessary to speak in such harsh terms of so many of his fel- 

 low-labourers. 



SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 



The determination of the zoological relations of the fossil jaws from 

 the Stonesfield strata, and also those of the animals whose footmarks 

 have been left in rocks of still higher antiquity, are two subjects now 

 before the scientific world. As regards the first of these, our readers 

 are already in possession of much interesting matter that has been ad- 

 vanced by two distinguished continental naturalists, who entertain very 

 opposite opinions. With respect to the sandstone impressions, this sub- 

 ject is so nearly related to that of the " supposed fossil didelphs," that 

 we are induced (knowing the report to be a correct one) to quote the 

 following article from the columns of the ' Liverpool Mercury, ' of the 

 24th of August, 1838. It contains the substance of a lecture deliver- 

 ed by Prof. Grant, at the Liverpool Mechanics' Institution ; and the 

 portions we extract refer to the numerous footmarks lately noticed in 

 Stourton stone-quarries. 



In the oldest fossiliferous beds of transition rocks the organic 

 remains are chiefly of invertebrated animals, with obscure 

 traces of fishes belonging to forms altogether extinct ; and al- 

 though in the secondary mountain limestone, immediately be- 

 low the coal, diversified forms of fishes abound, no trace of 

 reptiles or of warm-blooded animals has yet been perceived 

 in rocks of that antiquity. In the new red sandstone before 

 us, however, the densest parts, — the teeth, and distinct impres- 

 sions of the feet of reptiles, begin to make their appearance, 

 and most colossal forms of the animals of this class abound 

 through all the lias formations, extending almost from this 

 sandstone rock to the oolites. The numerous large footmarks 

 on this block of sandstone are most quadruped-like in their 

 forms, but as no fragment or trace belonging to that elevated 

 class of animals has ever been observed in formations below 

 the oolites, which oolites approach to the newest of the se- 

 condary rocks, it behoves us not only to compare these im- 

 pressions cautiously with the feet of different classes of verte- 

 brated animals, but also to suspend our judgment, if they are 

 not capable of affording satisfactory evidence regarding the 

 nature of the animal which has left them. In attempting to 

 draw determinate conclusions from imperfect relics of this 

 kind, it is to be remembered that Scheuchzer described, as 

 the remains of our species, as a homo diluvii testis, what is 



