OF CREATION. 



127 



print like an expanded hand, also very large in some 

 cases, and belonging to an animal of which it was 

 for a long time impossible even to guess the true 

 nature. The marks of birds have been found chiefly 

 in America,* but are abundant and very strongly 

 marked; so that, although no other indications what- 

 ever of these animals have yet been brought to light, 

 it is impossible not to admit that they must then 

 have existed. 



The large five-toed foot-marks impressed on seve- 

 ral beds of marly sandstone in 

 various parts of England and Eu- 

 rope, more especially in Cheshire, 

 in the tongue of land between the 

 Mersey and the Dee, and at Hild- 

 burghausen in Saxony, bear so 

 singular a resemblance to the hu- 

 man hand, that the unknown ani- 

 mal, to whose march over the an- 

 cient sea-shore they are owing, 

 was long designated as the Chiro- 

 iherium.^ The dimensions of 

 these marks are various, J but 

 the prints of the hind feet are al- 

 ways much larger than those of the fore feet, in 

 some cases four times as large, while the distance be- 

 tween the impressions of the fore and hind foot is 



* It is only very recently that markings of the same kind have been 

 observed, by Mr. Cunningham, on the surface of slabs in the new red 

 sandstone quarries of Storton, near Liverpool. 



t Xs/ (che.ir\ hand ; dypav (therion), a wild beast. 



J In some of the specimens most remarkable for size, the length of the 

 larger impression is upwards of twelve inches, the smaller one being about 

 four inches long. 



FOOTMARKS. 

 ( Chirotherium.) 



