164 PALEONTOLOGY 



hind foot are generally 8 inches in length and 5 inches in 

 width ; near each large footstep, and at a regular distance — 

 about an inch and a half — before it, a smaller print of the fore 

 foot, 4 inches long and 3 inches wide, occurs. The footsteps 

 follow each other in pairs, each pair in the same line, at intervals 

 of about 1 4 inches from pair to pair. The large as well as the 

 small steps show the thumb-like outermost toe alternately on 

 the right and left side, each step making a print of five toes. 



Footprints of corresponding form, but of smaller size, have 

 been discovered in the quarry at Storton Hill, imprinted on 

 five thin beds of clay, lying one upon another in the same 

 quarry, and separated by beds of sandstone. From the lower 

 surface of the sandstone layers the solid casts of each impres- 

 sion project in high relief, and afford models of the feet, toes, 

 and claws of the animals which trod on the clay. 



Similar footprints were first observed in Saxony, at the 

 village of Hessburgh, near Hillburghausen, in several quarries 

 of a grey quartzose sandstone, alternating with beds of red 

 sandstone, and of the same geological age as the sandstones of 

 England that had been trodden by the same strange animal. 

 The German geologist who first described them (1834) pro- 

 posed the name of Chcirothcrium (chcir, the hand, thcrion, 

 beast) for the great unknown animal that had left the foot- 

 prints, in consequence of the resemblance, both of the fore and 

 hind feet, to the impression of a human hand ; and Dr. Kaup 

 conjectured that the animal might be a large species of the 

 opossum kind ; but in Didelphys the thumb is on the inner 

 side of the hind-foot. The fossil skulls, jaws, teeth, and a few 

 other bones, in the sandstones exhibiting the footprints in 

 question, and corresponding in size with those impressions, 

 belong to lahyrinthodont or huge extinct batrachian reptiles. 



The impressions of the Chcirothcrium resemble those of 

 the footprints of a salamander, in having the short outer toe 

 of the hind foot projecting at a right angle to the line of the 



