December, 1S44.J 175 



Carboniferous species. 

 Bellekophron. 



Bellerophron scissile. Dilated, profoundly ventricose from the margins 

 of the aperture, and with coarse, transverse, irregular lines ; back subangu- 

 lated medially and with a medial channel, angulated and slightly carinated 

 on the margins, the channel profound from the margin of the aperture to the 

 middle of shell, and obsolete on the other portion of the back. Length 2 

 inches. 



Locality. St. Genevieve. 



The Committee on a communication from Dr. Alfred T. 

 King, of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, describing fossil foot 

 marks recently discovered in his vicinity, reported in favor 

 of publication. 



Description of Fossil Foot Maries, supposed to be referable to the 

 classes Birds, Reptilia and Mammalia, found in the carboni- 

 ferous series, in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. 



By Alfred T. King, M. D. 



The petrifaction of tracks of animals once almost universally doubted, is 

 now no longer a problem to be solved, and Ichnolology or Ichnolithology is 

 admitted as a distinct branch of Paleontology. It is but an extension of the 

 principle of Cuvier, who proved experimentally, " that when we find merely 

 the extremity of a well preserved bone, we are able, by a careful examina- 

 tion, assisted by analogy and exact comparison, to determine the species to 

 which it once belonged, as certainly as if we had the entire animal before us." 

 Professor Kauss, of Germany, Rev. Dr. Duncan, of Scotland, and Professor 

 Hitchcock, of Amherst College, have described various and singular foot 

 marks in the upper new red sand stone, but so far as my information extends, 

 they have never found either the inhumed bones, or any other decided indica- 

 tions of the existence of Birds, Reptilia and Mammalia, as early as the car- 

 boniferous period. If I am correct in this statement, the discovery which I 

 am about to announce of the vivid imprint of the feet of animals referable to 

 these classes, and to this epoch, must be regarded with no ordinary interest 

 by geologists. 



If the discovery of bird tracks by Professor Hitchcock, in 1836, as low as 

 the upper new red sand-stone, was received with scepticism by geologists, 

 their doubts may now be renewed with increased strength, when it is an- 

 nounced that birds existed analogous to our Grallatores, and left their foot 

 marks in arenaceous mud, ages anterior to the deposite of the sand-stone of 

 Connecticut river. 



Professor Hitchcock originally denominated the bird tracks which he 



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