THE SEAT OF A ZOOPHYTE. 



^16 



sand-Stone that underlies the chalk formation, and occurs 

 in the lower green sand ; and the imprint had been formed 

 long ages before horses or Druid blacksmiths had worn 

 or made hoof-plates on the more recent and superficial 

 strata of our present earth. 



Sir C. Lyell has given an opinion with regard to this 

 curiosity. He says, ' Most of the horse-shoe impressions, 

 of which I have seen a great many in the older stratified 

 rocks of Scotland, have been thought to imply the former 

 presence of medusae, but this is a mere conjecture, derived 

 from finding similar impressions made on the sands on 

 which such gelatinous bodies rest. They have nothing 

 to do with the footprints of horses.' 



Professor Tennant, of the Strand, London, most ob- 

 ligingly undertook to explain the nature of the horse-shoe 

 imprint, and the mode of its formation. It was only 

 necessary for him to fit into it a petrified zoophyte, whose 

 base, like the bottom of a champagne bottle, had perhaps 

 made scores of these ' Man Friday ' tracks, to settle the 

 question. One of these creatures had settled itself upon 

 the soft sand, when there was nobody present to note the 

 circumstance ; the almost circular indent made by its cup- 

 like basis had escaped obliteration, the sand became rock, 

 — fine, close, and hard enough to sharpen a scythe-blade, 

 and to render the Devonshire scythe-stone pits famous ; 

 and long after subsequent races of creatures had passed 

 away — even the Druids and aboriginal horses, the whilom 

 resting-place of this half-animal, half-vegetable, had been 

 rev^ealed, and a chip knocked off one of its sides. So much 



for the traditions of hoof-prints. 



i8* 



