Manchester Memoirs, Vol. liii. (1909), No. 3^. 15 



The Devonshire Footprints. 



I do not intend to give any description of the prints 

 which have recently been discovered by Principal Clayden 

 in the Red Sandstones near Exeter, as they are under 

 full investigation by their discoverer. They are illustrated 

 only by Fig. 15, Plate II., drawn from Mr. Clayden's 

 plate (Clayden, :o8)- The resemblance of this track to 

 some of those from Penrith is obvious. Mr. Clayden 

 hopes to settle the age of these beds by means of the 

 footprints, and I have little doubt they will prove to be a 

 Permian group, thus confirming the opinion now generally 

 entertained, concerning the correlation of these rocks. 



Relation of the Permian Footprints to those 

 OF THE Trias and Carboniferous. 



The comparison with Triassic footprints can be very 

 briefly disposed of I have never yet seen any Permian 

 print which could be confused with a Triassic one. What 

 is more significant, the whole fades of the two sets of 

 impressions is distinct. In the Permian, impressions of 

 a plantigrade type are decidedly the rule ; in the Trias 

 they are rare — a fact not without its palaeontological 

 interest. In the Permian again, " wide " tracks {i.e., with 

 right and left sides well separated) are the predominant 

 type, while the Triassic forms tend to have the sides 

 more approximated — again a feature of both palaeonto- 

 logical and stratigraphical interest. There is no well- 

 defined Permian track yet known which has the char- 

 acteristic feature of all the cheirotheroid forms : the 

 prints of the right and left sides nearly in a line. 



The relation of the Permian and Carboniferous 

 footprints promises to be interesting. Unfortunately no 



