13^ Mr Grierson 07i Footsteps before the Flood. 



motion by the steepness of the path in wliich he had to de- 

 scend. Owing, however, to the comparative hardness of those 

 parts which had been subjected to the pressure of the animal, 

 the footmarks were but little injured by the fracture, and 

 having collected and arranged on the spot as many of the 

 fragments as we could clearly distinguish, they were afterwards 

 put in a flat wooden case, and cemented with stucco, which, 

 besides keeping them in their relative positions, served as a 

 sort of compensation for those that were awanting. Mutilated 

 as it is, the specimen is sufficient to show the size and shape 

 of the footmarks, and the length of the stride or step, which 

 is about 12 or 13 inches, and therefore of course a kind of 

 index to the length of the animal's body. To what species 

 the animal belonged I leave it to more skilful naturalists to 

 determine. The impressions, of which a cast was sent to Dr 

 Buckland, are thought by him to have been produced hy the 

 feet of a tortoise or crocodile. 



The track next to the one from which this specimen was got, 

 was that of an animal whose foot must have been about seven 

 or eight inches in length, and fully four inches in breadth ; and 

 whose stride measured about twenty inches. The footmarks 

 of this track were not so distinct as those of the preceding ; and 

 in some instances they had been filled up by a subsequent de- 

 position of sandy matter, which was a little more elevated than 

 the lip or edge of the impression — presenting exactly such an 

 appearance as is sometimes exhibited on the sea-beach, where 

 the tide has passed over and filled up the footsteps of a recent 

 traveller. Of these impressions we eagerly set about obtaining 

 a specimen, in order that Dr Duncan might meet the request of 

 Professor Buckland ; but we had the mortification of finding, 

 that in the neighbourhood of this track, the thin superficial 

 layer was, owing as it seemed to the pressure of the large ani- 

 mal which had walked over it, so closely compacted with the 

 stratum beneath, that it was impossible to remove the specimen 

 without quarrying an immense solid block. One or two foot- 

 marks, indeed, we did succeed in flaking or tearing off", but in 

 a very imperfect state ; and we had then an opportunity of ob- 

 serving, that in the centre of the part where the pressure had 

 keen greatest, the matter of the thin layer was less adhering to 



