Kansas Academy of SciEycK 

 RECENT DISCOVERIE8 OF FOSSIL FOOTPRINTS IN KANSAS. 



BY B. F. MUDGE. 



About the 1st of July, in crossing Kansas avenue, Topeka, we noticed, on 

 a slab of the flagging, clearly defined footprints of reptiles. There was no 

 hesitancy in referring the stone to the quarries of Crane & Dodd, of Osage. 

 Taking the next train to that place, and carefully examining the quarries, a 

 mile apart, we were well rewarded for our trouble. 



The flagging at the new quarry consists of four principal layers, respectively 

 one and a half, two, three, and four inches in thickness, interlaid usually by 

 thin seams of soft shale. The flagging is fine-grained sandstone of close 

 texture, coming out in slabs sometimes ten feet by twenty-five. 



At the old quarry, the layers are not so distinct. The slabs, as they are 

 quaj-ried, are frequently inclined to split in thin sheets, some of which are 

 marked by footprints. The best of the smaller ones were thus obtained, 

 giving a fine specimen of footprint and cast. 



The deposit is just above the middle of the coal measures, and about a 

 dozen feet above the coal seam worked at Carbondale and Osage. The slabs 

 or layers containing the footprints afford but few fossils, although there are 

 numerous fucoidal impressions with ripple-marks. But immediately above 

 and below the flagging, are calcareous strata containing abundant remains of 

 the usual marine fossils of the period. 



We have selected thirty slabs containing footprints, for preservation, there 

 being a few others too poor to pay for removal. Most of these contain but 

 one set of tracks, but several contain two of different species, and one has 

 four sets. 



The most common footprints, represented l^y more than half of all that 

 were found, were large, saurian-like tracks, in character and shape a little 

 like Polenuirchus gigaus of Hitchcock. It differs in being but two-thirds as 

 large, and in the proportional length of the toe and heel. In our species 

 the toes are all nearly of the same length, five inches, and the heel 

 four inches, making the total length nine inches. The width of the heel is 

 five inches. There are some indications of a fourth short lateral toe. The 

 length of the stride is from twenty to tw^enty-two inches. Width of the 

 trackway, from center to center of the footprint, is from four to six inches. 

 There are about twenty slabs marked by this species, some of which are very 

 poor. The number of footprints on the slab varies from two to twenty. 



The tracks of this species differ much in size, so much so that I was at 

 first inclined to consider them of two species ; but I now class them as old 

 and young individuals. On the largest slab, the smaller ( there being three 

 rows of tracks) are half the size of the larger, and it will be no gi-eat stretch 

 ai' the imagination to suppose that in this case the mother was followed by 

 her' offspring. 



Over two hundred footprints of this species were seen, and all found in the 

 four-inch flagging. They are all casts. The outline of the foot in this species 



