﻿Fossil Footprints of the Connecticut Valley, 159 



The successive steps of three individuals derived from distinct 

 localities, are grouped upon the plate, which at first view imparts 

 to it a crowded appearance ; but a slight examination will rectify 

 this apparent confusion. Fig. 1 is a course of consecutive foot- 

 steps, accurate in size and order of occurrence. Fig. 2, alternate 

 impressions, in their natural relations of size and place. Fig. 3, 

 also alternate impressions, but not in their relative order, the 

 capacity of the plate being inadequate to that design. These 

 footprints are drawn with elaborate care, and may be relied upon 

 as being, in a very high degree, correct copies of the originals. 



It was not until six years after the ornithological footsteps 

 upon the same rock attracted my attention, that I discovered these 

 cotemporary impressions, notwithstanding vigilant search had 

 been made during this interval. The disclosure of several species 

 of reptiles in the equivalent rock of Germany and England, ren- 

 dered it nearly certain that sooner or later the vestiges of kindred 

 animals would be found upon our own strata. Prof. Silliman, in 

 his anniversary address before the Association of American Geol- 

 ogists in 1842, remarked, " that it was certainly possible (speak- 

 ing then of Omithichnites) that among the impressions of this 

 period, if not among those already discovered, may be found 

 some of the Batrachians and Chirotheria of England and Ger- 

 many." I had previously submitted to Prof. Hitchcock an ex- 

 ample of anomalous tracks from Turner's Falls, (fig. 1,) which 

 he conjectured might be those of a quadruped. But up to this 

 year no corroborating evidence appeared to sustain this belief, 

 and Mr. H. meanwhile published an account of them in the first 

 volume of Transactions of American Geologists, including them, 

 however, in his order Dipodichnites, or bipedal footsteps * But 

 recent explorations have established the quadrupedal origin of 

 this example, by the concurrent discovery in adjacent localities, 



• The language used by Prof. Hitchcock, after describing the above impressions, 

 fi- 1 (see his figure 9, PI. XI, and description, Proceedings of Assoc. Am. Geol. 

 1*269) is- " The probability therefore is, that this is the track of a quadruped. 

 Indeed its appearance is like the track of a four-footed animal. Yet It differs 

 from the Chirotherium in having only three toes beside the thumb Still the 

 shape of the toes corresponds well to those of the Cl.irqthenum. If I am not 

 mistaken, then, this is the first example in which I have any certain evidence that 

 any of the numerous tracks upon the sandstone of the Connecticut valley were 

 made by a quadruped: though as will be seen by reference to my Final Report, I 

 strongly suspected such might be the case in respect to several of them. -Eds. 





