292 Prof. Hitchcock on Ichnolithology, or Fossil Footmarks. 



Art. VII. 



Fossil Footmarks 



a Description of several New Species, and the Coprolites of 

 Birds, from the valley of Connecticut River, and of a suppo- 

 sed Footmark from the valley of Hudson River ; by Prof. 

 Edward Hitchcock, LL. D. of Amherst College. 



(Read before the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists, at Washing. 



ton, May 11, 1844.) 



Ichnolithology, or as it is denominated by Dr. Buckland, Ich- 

 nology, has only recently been admitted as a branch of paleon- 

 tology. It was a great advance upon our previous knowledge, 

 when Cuvier demonstrated experimentally, " that when we find 

 merely the extremity of a well preserved bone, we are able, by a 

 careful examination, assisted by analogy and exact comparison, 

 to determine the species to which it once belonged, as certainly 

 as if we had the entire animal before us." But if this principle 

 was, and still is, doubted by some able men, still more sceptical 

 should we expect them to be, and still more sceptical they have 

 actually been, as to the position that we are able to determine the 

 character of an animal from its footmark. Yet this is the funda- 

 mental principle of ichnolithology. Even here however, we 

 find that so far as one tribe of animals are concerned, the saga- 

 cious mind of Cuvier has anticipated this principle. " Any on , 

 says he, " who observes merely the print of a cloven hoof, may 

 conclude that it has been left by a ruminant animal, and regar 

 this conclusion as equally certain with any other in physic 

 morals. Consequently this single footmark clearly indicates 

 the observer the form of the teeth, of the jaws, of the verte ijB> 

 of all the leg bones, thighs, shoulders, and of the trunk ot 

 body of the animal which left the mark. It is much surer ^ 

 all the marks of Zadig." It required only to extend this princip^ 

 to other tribes of animals, to constitute ichnolithology in its p 



sent state. Whether 



ard 

 ionable* 



to other animals as in regard to the ruminants, is questi 

 Nor is it probable that Cuvier, when he wrote the above, ha 

 idea that tracks would ever be found in solid rock sufficien tiy P^ 

 feet to indicate the animal that made them ; much less wi ^ 

 any other evidence of their existence. The d i® cult ^.° hm0 st 

 ceiving how tracks could be petrified, has indeed been w -1 



