Tracks of Animals in Variegated Sandstone. 255 
Art. V.—Notice of Tracks of Animals in Variegated Sandstone 
at Polzig, between Ronneburg and Weissenfels ; by Hr. Dr. 
B. Corra.* 
Translated for this Journal by Rey. Prof. W. A. Larnep, of Yale College. 
Wurte recently engaged in revising the preparations for the 
geological map of Saxony, in the country between Ronneburg 
and Weissenfels, I frequently met with stone slabs in the region 
of the variegated sandstone, which were covered on one side with 
the same sort of reticular padding as the track-sandstone of Hild- 
burghausen. These net-formed pads could have originated in 
no other way, as every thing about them shows, than by the fill- 
ing up of clefts occasioned by the drying of thin layers of clay. 
But if thin beds of clay formed between sandstone strata, had 
time and opportunity for drying before the deposition of a new 
layer of sand, then manifestly there existed some of the essential 
pre-requisites for the preservation of ancient foot-prints; it would 
Only be necessary that there should be animals at that period to 
roam at will over the soft clay, before the water covered it anew 
with sand. Under these impressions, I began to search for foot- 
tracks on my way to Poélzig, where, as I was informed, the slabs 
were abundant. Before reaching the quarries at Pélzig and Klein- 
Porthen, I observed at a village, in a heap of building stones, sev- 
eral small elevated figures, which arrested my attention on account 
of their similarity in form and size ; their form, however, appear- 
ed so remarkable that I could hardly persuade myself they were 
casts of tracks, although I was in search of such. On arriving, 
however, at the quarry of Pélzig, I obtained full evidence that 
these divires actually originated from the footsteps of animals. 
Several large slabs were here entirely covered with them, and in 
one place at the first quarry, on the left slope of the valley above 
Pélzig, I found the track-stratum still remaining, a portion dug 
under and covered on the under side entirely with reliefs. ‘Such 
is the history of the discovery, though it is but just to say, that 
had not Dr. Sickler led the way, I should never have thought of 
* Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie, pr ery Geologie und Petrefaktenkunde, 
beriuspcgeten von Dr, K. C. v. Leonhard und Dr. H. G. Bronn, Professoren an 
der Universitat zu Heidelberg. Erstes 
