NOTES. 283 



exhibit a ball with five toe-marks, circular and elongated, placed in 

 radiating fashion before it. In similar strata, at another place, are 

 footsteps of a different kind, resembling the human hand, with the 

 rudiment of a sixth toe at the side, opposite that presenting what 

 stands for the thumb. Silliman's Journal, April 1845. 



These markings point most probably to batrachian reptiles. The 

 existence of birds at so early a period, especially after the celebrated 

 Wealden relics are set down as belonging to pterodactyles, would 

 require strong evidence. 



(30.) Volcanic disturbances break up the rocks; the pieces are 

 worn in seas ; and a deposit of conglomerate is the consequence. 

 Of porphyry, there are some such pieces in the conglomerate of 

 Devonshire, three or four tons in weight. 



(31.) Literally red dead Hers ; that is, strata of red colour, and 

 having no remains of living things in them. 



(32.) Murchison's Geology of Russia in Europe. 



(33.) See eundem; also Mr. Homer's address as president of 

 the Geological Society, Feb. 1846. 



Russia presents another notable example of a change of fossils in 

 a conformable series of strata ; that is, a series showing no record of 

 volcanic disturbances. This takes place between the Devonian and 

 Carboniferous formations. " The uppermost beds of the Devonian," 

 says Sir R. Murchison, "loaded with Holoptychius and Onchus, 

 Coccosteus, Placosteus, and Dendrodus, are at once conformably 

 surmounted by strata containing the most universally diffused car- 

 boniferous types. In short, fishes identical with those of the Old 

 Red Sandstone of Scotland are invariably surmounted by the 

 Stigmaria Jicoides and the large Producti of our British mountain 

 limestone ; and thus the examination of Russia has taught us, not 

 only in this instance, but also in the overlying Permian succession, 

 that the great changes in animal life have not been dependent on 

 physical revolutions of the surface, but are distinct creations, inde- 

 pendent of any proximate local causes ; though I would by no 

 means pretend to say that the grand operations of change which 

 have affected the conterminous regions of Russia did not tend to 

 produce these results." 



(34.) Dr. Buckland (Bridgewater Treatise) quoting an article by 

 Professor Hitchcock in the American Journal of Sciences, 1836. 



(35.) Murchison's Silurian System. 



(36.) Bucklaud, Bridgewater Treatise. 



(37.) Murchison's Geology of Russia in Europe. 



