CHAPTER Y 



GREAT SALAMANDERS AND THEIR ASSOCIATES 



While the Devonian period has long been 

 termed the Age of Fishes, there are hints in 

 the shape of footprints impressed in Upper De- 

 vonian rocks of Pennsylvania that even then 

 air-breathing vertebrates had made their ap- 

 pearance. Other footprints, certainly amphib- 

 ian, which occur in the lower coal -bearing 

 rocks definitely announce the presence of these 

 animals, scouts of the hosts soon to come. 

 Over fifty years ago Isaac Lea described some 

 of these tracks from Pottsville, Pa., and his 

 description is so good an example of the in- 

 formation that may be gathered from foot- 

 prints that it is repeated here.* " There is a 

 succession of 6 steps, along a surface little 

 over 5 feet long; each step is a double one, 



* As given in Dana's Manual of Geology, page 644, edition of 

 1896. 



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