64 PETRIFACTIONS AND THEIR TEACHINGS. CHAP. I. 



On a stone six feet long by five wide, there were the foot- 

 steps of several animals of various sizes. The largest im- 

 prints are generally eight inches long, and five wide. Near 

 each large footmark, and at the distance of an inch and 

 a half beyond it, is the imprint of the forefoot, which is but 

 four inches long and three wide. These footsteps follow one 

 another in pairs, each pair being in the same line, and fourteen 

 inches in advance of one another. Each footmark has five 

 toes, and the first or great toe is bent inwards like a thumb, 

 and is alternately on the right and left side of both the large 

 and small footprints, which, except in size, closely resemble 

 each other. 



M. Kaup, who first described these remarkable fossils, 

 proposed the name Chirotherium for the unknown animal 

 whose existence 'is indicated by these hand-like footmarks. 

 No certain remains of the beings whose footsteps are the 

 subject of these remarks have hitherto been discovered. 

 There have, however, been obtained from the same deposits 

 in Germany and England, skulls, teeth, and bones, of several 

 species of an extinct genus of reptiles, supposed to be related 

 to the Batrachians, or frog-tribe, and which have been named 

 Ldbyrinthodon, from the peculiar character of the intimate 

 structure of the teeth. 1 Some of these Saurians must have 

 attained a magnitude equal to that indicated by the largest 

 Chirotherium tracks, while other species corresponded in size 

 with the lesser Ichnolites. There is, therefore, much pro- 

 bability in the conjecture that the Labyrinthodons were the 

 originals of the hypotnetical Chirotheria ; but, unfortunately, 

 the form and structure of the feet is unknown, for no bones 

 of the extremities have been discovered j the presumed iden- 

 tity cannot, therefore, be determined, till more instructive 

 specimens are brought to light. 



ORNITHICHNITES. (Footprints of Birds on stone.} North 

 Wall. The river Connecticut, in part of its course through 

 the country which bears its name, and in the northern dis- 

 tricts of the adjoining State of Massachusetts, flows through a 

 valley formed of argillaceous sandstone, probably of the age 

 of the Triassic formation, resting unconformably on the in- 



See "Wonders of Geology," p. 554. 



