ROOM I. 



CHAPTER I. 

 PART III. 



FOOTPRINTS AND RIPPLEMARKS ON STONE FOOTMARKS OP QUADRUPEDS ON 

 TRIASSIO SANDSTONE CHIROTHERIUM ICHNOLITES FROM NEAR LIVERPOOL 



ICHNOLITES FROM SAXONY ORNITHICHNITES, OR FOOTMARKS OF BIRDS, 



FROM NORTH AMERICA SPECIMENS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM IMPRESSION 



OF THE SKIN OF THK FOOT SIR C. LYELL ON THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF 



THE IMPRINTS. 



FOOTPRINTS AND RIPPLEMARKS ON STONE. The intelligent ob- 

 server who has strolled along the strand of the sea-shore at 

 low water, must have often seen the surface of the exposed 

 sands deeply rippled by the waves of the ebbing tide, and 

 have noticed the trails of mollusks, and the meandering 

 furrows and ridges produced by worms or annelides, and 

 the tracks of crabs, and sometimes the footprints of birds, and 

 of dogs or other quadrupeds, that have walked over the soil 

 whilst it was plastic, yet sufficiently firm to retain the 

 markings impressed on it. Under certain conditions, these 

 apparently evanescent characters are indelibly fixed on the 

 stratum, and in rocks of immense antiquity successive layers 

 of sandstone and shale, through a thickness of many hundred 

 feet, are found deeply furrowed with the ripples of the waves 

 that flowed over them, and pitted by the rain that has fallen 

 upon them, and impressed with the footmarks of bipeds and 

 quadrupeds that traversed the sands whilst the surface was in 

 a moist and yielding state. Referring the reader to Sir 

 C. Lyell's " Elements of Geology," * or my " Wonders of 

 Geology," a for a full consideration of the physical conditions 

 under which these phenomena must have been produced, 

 I proceed to describe the slabs of sandstone traversed by 

 footprints of bipeds and quadrupeds, that are affixed to the 

 north wall, immediately opposite to the entrance of Room I. 



1 " Elements of Geology," p. 297. 2 Vol. i. p. 372. 



