40 EXTINCT MONSTERS 



rain-drops that fell while the surface was soft and impressible. 

 The footprints from Storton are seen on the face of each 

 successive stratum of marl, the corresponding surface of the 

 overlying stone presenting, in relief, casts of the imprints and 

 other markings. The hollow impressions of the feet are always 

 on the upper surfaces of the slabs, and the convex casts on the 

 under side of each layer or stratum, the latter fitting closely 

 into the former. The double lines in between are casts of 

 sun-cracks formed as the mud dried in the sun. 



These " footprints on the sands of time " follow one another 

 in pairs one small, the other large, each pair being in the 

 same line, and some fourteen inches in advance of the other. 

 Each footmark has five toes, and the first, or little toe, is bent 

 outward like a thumb, and is alternately on the right and left 

 side of both the large and small footprints, which, except in 

 size, resemble each other. The German geologist, Dr. Kaup, 

 who first described them in 1834, proposed the name of 

 Cheirotherium l for the great unknown animal that left the foot- 

 prints, in consequence of the resemblance, both of the fore and 

 hind feet, to the impression of a human hand. No certain remains 

 of the creatures whose tracks we are now considering have yet 

 been discovered in the same strata. But in these rocks and 

 others of the same geological age in England and Germany there 

 have been obtained skulls, teeth, and bones of amphibians, 

 known as Labyrinthodonts, of which we shall have more to say 

 in Chapter VI. Some of the salamander-like amphibians of the 

 Triassic period, we now know from later discoveries, attained to 

 a considerable size. 



As Sir K. Owen points out, the impressions of the Cheirotherium 

 resemble the footprints of a modern salamander in having the 



1 Greek cheir, hand ; therion, beast. 



