168 ON THE ORIGIN OF COAL. 



In the upper new red sandstone of Weston 

 Bank, near Runcorn, in Cheshire, we have the 

 first positive evidence hitherto discovered of dry 

 land in England. 



At Weston, in the rock above named, about 

 thirty-two feet from the surface, and in the higher 

 part of the deposit, there is a thin bed of red 

 clay, from about half to three-quarters of an inch 

 in thickness. This clay affords impressions of the 

 feet marks of the Cheirotherium, Rhynchosaurus, 

 several other reptiles, numerous worm marks, 

 and beautiful lines of desiccation, similar to what 

 a bed of moist clay would undergo, under a hot 

 sun at the present day. The red clay was 

 evidently deposited by water, which afterwards 

 receded from it and left it uncovered. When 

 this deposit was in a plastic state, the animals 

 walked across it and left their tracks, subse- 

 quently the sun or air by desiccating the clay, 

 produced wide cracks, and the water, at length 

 returning, again filled both the feet marks and 

 cracks, and made a beautiful cast of them in sand. 

 Thus do these most interesting specimens, not 

 only show us the tracks, left counties ages ago, 

 of some of the most extraordinary animals that 

 ever existed on our globe, but they afford us 



