FOOTPRINTS ON THE SANDS OF TIME 43 



the adjoining State of Massachusetts, flows through a valley cut 

 out of sandstone of the Triassic age. Successive layers of this 

 rock are exposed all along considerable tracts of country. From 

 this circumstance, and from the facility of transport afforded by 

 the river, numerous quarries have, for many years, been worked 

 in various parts of the valley, near the water's edge. The many 

 footprints contained in these rocks were observed much earlier 

 than the date (1828) in which the Eev. Dr. Duncan first described 

 the tracks at Corncockle Muir (see p. 37). They have been very 

 fully described and figured by Professor Ed. Hitchcock 1 and 

 Dr. J. Deane. 2 As far as Dr. Deane could learn, the first 

 specimen was ploughed up in South Harley, in 1802, by a boy. 

 This specimen is now in the Appleton Ichnological Cabinet. 3 So 

 strikingly did the tracks resemble those of birds, that they were 

 familiarly spoken of as the tracks of poultry, or of " Noah's raven." 

 It was not until the year 1836 that any attempt was made to 

 describe the tracks scientifically. The year previous some flagging 

 stones were obtained in Montague for the streets of Greenfield, 

 by a Mr. Wilson, who observed impressions upon them, which he 

 regarded as tracks of " the turkey tribe." These were observed 

 by Dr. Deane, who sent casts of them to Professor Hitchcock. 

 Professor Hitchcock gave his first account of them in The 

 American Journal of Science, in 1836. He propounded the idea 



1 Professor Ed. Hitchcock, Ichnology of New England. (Boston, 1858.) 



2 Dr. J. Deane, Ichnographs from the Sandstone of Connecticut River. 

 (Boston, 1861.) 



3 The late Honourable Samuel Appleton, of Boston, left by his will a large 

 sum of money to be appropriated by the trustees under his will to benevolent 

 and scientific purposes. Those trustees accordingly appropriated ten thousand 

 dollars to the erection of the Appleton Cabinet at Amherst, a museum of 

 which the lower story is entirely devoted to fossil footmarks (see Report of 

 Smithsonian Institution, 1907). A still larger collection is now in the Museum 

 of Yale University, but only a part is on view. 



