452 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Dec. 



tinct course, that one can ascertain the direction of the wind, 

 which bore the rain clouds along with it. The sandstones of 

 Cheshire, again, exhibit sufficient evidences of solar influence. 

 We find here the sun- dried surfaces of the clayey strata associated 

 with the sandstone, over which animals formerly crawled, cracked 

 and shrunk by the solar beams. Sometimes they present beautiful 

 sand ripples, the result of a gentle breeze breaking the stiff 

 surface of a shallow pool of sea water on these sandy shores. 

 There may also be found instances of the evaporation of salt- 

 water, and the crystallization of sea-salt, from the natural salt 

 pans of the ancient beaches. Another noticeable fact is the 

 almost constant and uniform direction of the impressions. They 

 nearly all indicate that the animals, which Sir William Jardine 

 shows must have belonged to some forms of tortoise, walked from 

 the west towards the east. Further discoveries of fossil foot- 

 steps were made in the United States in 1835 ; the impressions 

 resembled the feet of birds, and were found in the sandstone 

 rocks near Greenfield. Dr. Hitchcock, President of Amherst 

 College, showed that they were actually produced by the feet of 

 living birds, and that one of the tracks had been made 

 by a pair of feet, each leaving a print twenty inches in length. 

 Says the eminent Owen : " Under the term Ornithichnites gigcm- 

 ieus, Dr. Hitchcock did not shrink from announcing to the geolo- 

 gical world the fact of the existence, during the period of the 

 deposition of the red sandstone of the valley of the Connecticut, of 

 a bird which must have been at least four times larger than the 

 ostrich." Says Hugh Miller, K I have already referred to 

 flying dragons, real existences of the Oolitic period, that were 

 quite as extraordinary of type, if not altogether so huge of bulk, 

 as those with which the Seven Champions of Christendom used 

 to do battle ; and here we are introduced to birds that were 

 scarcely less gigantic than the roc of Sinbad the sailor." I might 

 add to Miller's remarks, that the Bar Yuchne, that enormous 

 bird of the Talmudic legend, seems to find identification here. 



But I must hasten to conclude these remarks, already too long. 

 They must necessarily convey but a very faint idea of the bound- 

 less field of interesting and pleasurable inquiry awaiting the 

 student of Natural History ; still, I trust, they will not be without 

 effect in leading into this field 5 some of those who have not 

 hitherto entered at all. To such my concluding words would be 

 in the accents of caution and advice. I would say, You must 



