28 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



for these long-lived creatures grow almost continuously 

 throughout life, so that one animal even may have left 

 his footprints over and over in assorted sizes from one 

 end of the valley to the other. 



The slab shown on the following page is a remarkably 

 fine example of these Connecticut River footprints; it 

 shows in relief forty-eight tracks of the animal originally 

 called Brontozoum sillimanium and six of a lesser species. 

 It was quarried near Middletown, in 1778, and for sixty 

 years did duty as a flagstone, fortunately with the face 

 downwards. When taken up for repairs the tracks were 

 discovered, and later on the slab, which measures three 

 by five feet, was transferred to the museum of Amherst 

 College. 



There is an interesting parallel between the history of 

 footprints in England and America, for they were 

 noticed at about the same time, 1830, in both countries; 

 in each case the tracks were in rocks of Triassic age, 

 and, in both instances, the animals that made them have 

 never been found. In England, however, the tracks 

 first found were those ascribed to tortoises, though a 

 little later Dinosaur footprints were discovered in the 

 same locality. Oddly enough these numerous tracks 

 all run one way, from west to east, as if the animals 

 were migrating, or were pursuing some well-known and 

 customary route to their feeding grounds. 



For some reason Triassic rocks are particularly rich 

 in footprints; for from strata of this same age in the 

 Rhine Valley come those curious examples so like the 

 mark of a stubby hand that Dr. Kaup christened the 

 beast supposed to have made them Cheirotherium, 

 beast with a hand, suggesting that they had been made 

 by some gigantic opossum. As the tracks measure five 

 by eight inches, it would have been rather a large speci- 

 men, but the mammals had not then arisen, and it is 



