FOSSIL FUCI. 247 



of Mr. Saxby, even these brief details could not 

 have been obtained.* 



Fossil ftjci. — White ramose and meandering- 

 lines are not uncommon on the surface of the 

 sandstone : these are probably vestiges of fuci or 

 other marine plants. A well-known delicate species, 

 the Fucoicles Targionii,-\ that abounds in the malm- 

 rock of Bignor, in Sussex, occurs sparingly at 

 Ventnor. Some very curious trifid impressions are 

 sometimes observable on the surface of waterworn 

 blocks of sand-rock, and are possibly referable 

 either to this tribe of plants, or to some kind of 

 siphonia. Some of these imprints so closely re- 

 semble, both in form and in their arrangement on 

 the surface of the slabs, the supposed Ornithicnites, 

 or footsteps of birds, that occur in such perplexing 

 abundance and variety in certain ancient secondary 

 rocks of the United States^ that Mr. Saxby, 

 who first observed these fossils, was at infinite 

 pains to ascertain their nature. The examples 

 hitherto obtained, though very specious in appear- 

 ance, cannot, I conceive, be regarded as the im- 

 prints of the feet of any animal : unequivocal 



* Mr. Saxby has kindly informed me, that the quarry at Bonchurch is pre- 

 cisely at the commencement of the land-slip by the turnpike road, and the 

 layer in which the bone was found is three or four feet above the firestone. 



+ Medals of Creation, vol. i. p. 105. 



I Ibid. vol. ii. p. S10. 



