FOOTPRINTS ON THE SANDS OF TIME 41 



short outer toe of the hind foot projecting at right angles to the 

 line of the middle toe, but yet are not identical with those of 

 any known batrachian or reptile. Still it has been conjectured 

 by the same great authority, as well as by others, that these 

 footprints were the work of the creatures now known as Labyrin- 

 thodonts, which have left their remains in rocks of the Car- 

 boniferous, Triassic, and Permian ages. Later researches have 

 shown that Owen was wrong. We need not be surprised at this, 

 for Palaeontology has, like all the other sciences, made great 

 advances the last fifty years. The researches of Marsh, Cope, 

 Huxley, Fritsch, Seeley, and others, have brought to light many 

 new forms of old reptiles, some of which will be described in 

 later chapters. The supposed Cheirotherium probably was one 

 of the Dinosaurian reptiles, and in that case these footprints were 

 made by Dinosaurs. 



Our friend, Professor W. J. Sollas, has described some interest- 

 ing footprints from South Wales, which probably were made by 

 a Dinosaur of the Triassic age. 1 A friend of his was, in 1878, 

 passing through the village of Newton Nbttage, in Glamorgan- 

 shire, when his attention was arrested by some three-toed foot- 

 prints on a slab of rock, deeply impressed and rendered par- 

 ticularly visible by the slanting rays of the setting sun. Casts of 

 them were afterwards made by the curator of the Cardiff Museum 

 (Mr. J. Storrie). 



To show how valuable geological finds are often neglected 

 through ignorance of their real worth, it may be mentioned here 

 that this slab even in 1894 was lying in a corner of the village 

 green, in front of the church ; formerly it lay in front of the steps 

 of the inn, where it consequently suffered more or less wear. The 

 impressions remind one of some of those described by Professor 



1 Quarterly Journal of Geological Society, xxxv. (1879), p. 510. 



