ss i (7RE3 "\ i:yni,rTION m 



-I it, is six feet nine indies. I leave you, 

 therefore, to t<nn an impression of the magni- 

 tude of the creature which, as it walked along 

 the ancient shore, made these impressions. 



Of such impressions there are untold thousands 

 upon these sandstones. Fifty or sixty different- 

 kinds have been discovered, and they cover vast 

 But, up to this present time, imt a bone, 

 imt a fragment, of any one of the animals which 

 left these great footmarks has been found : in 

 fact, the only animal remains which have been 

 met with in all these deposits, from the time <t' 

 their discovery to the present day though they 

 have been carefully hunted over is a fragmentary 

 skeleton of one of the smaller forms. What lias 

 become of the bones of all these animals ? You 

 see we are not dealing with little creatures, but 

 with animals that make a step of six feet nine 

 inches ; and their remains must have been left 

 somewhere. The probability is, that they have 

 been dissolved away, and completely lost. 



I have had occasion to work out the nature <>f 

 fossil remains, of which there was nothing left 

 except casts of the bones, the solid material of the 

 skeleton having been dissolved out by percolating 

 water. It was a chance, in this case, that the 

 sandstone happened to be of such a constitution 

 as to set, and to allow the bones to be afterward 

 dissolved <nt. leaving cavities of the exact shape 

 <>t the bones. Had that constitution been other 



