FOOTPRINTS ON THE SANDS OF TIME 49 



toes that were used (functional toes), and that they had the 

 same number of joints in their toes as birds, has naturally led 

 scientific men to the opinion that probably all the tracks above 

 described were made, not by birds, but by Dinosaurs. It may 

 be pointed out in defence of this opinion, that, although the 

 two classes of Birds and Eeptiles are now widely separated, yet 

 in certain former geological periods there was no such gulf as 

 now divides them. At the time when the Connecticut Sandstone 

 tracks were made on the shores of a narrow inland sea, there 

 must have been in existence animals which, if we saw them 

 now, might sorely puzzle us to decide whether to call them 

 reptilian birds, or bird-like reptiles. 



During the Jura-Trias period there was in the region of 

 the Connecticut Valley a shallow sea, connected by a narrow 

 outlet with the ocean. Into this the tides flowed and ebbed, 

 leaving extensive flats of mud or sand, ribbed with ripple-marks. 

 A passing shower pitted the soft mud, and the sun, coming 

 out again from the breaking clouds, dried and cracked it. 

 Our Dinosaurs and other creatures sauntered or ran near the 

 margin of the shore. The tide came in again, carrying with 

 it fine sediments, gently covered the tracks, and preserved them 

 for ever. This occurred constantly for many ages, about the 

 time when the Triassic period came to a close. 



In the year 1882, reports were published of the discovery of 

 large footprints supposed to be human in a certain sandstone, 

 near Carson, Nevada, U.S., of which a brief account was given in 

 our former work. 1 These are probably the tracks made by a big 

 extinct sloth of the Pleistocene period. The wonderful series of foot- 

 prints of reptiles, birds, and mammals discovered by M. Desnoyers, 

 in certain Eocene strata near Paris, cannot be described here. 



1 Extinct Monsters, p. 185 (2nd edit.). 



