FOSSIL FOOTSTEPS. 201 



The Historian or the Antiquary may have traversed the 

 fields of ancient or of modern battles ; and may have pur- 

 sued the line of march of triumphant Conquerors, whose ar- 

 mies trampled down the most mighty kingdoms of the world. 

 The winds and storms have utterly obliterated the epheme- 

 ral impressions of their course. Not a track remains of a sin- 

 gle foot, or a single hoof, of all the countless millions of men 

 and beasts whose progress spread desolation over the earth. 

 But the Reptiles, that crawled upon the half-finished surface 

 of our infant planet, have left memorials of their passage, 

 enduring and indelible. No history has recorded their crea- 

 tion or destruction; their very bones are found no more 

 amonrr the fossil relics of a former world. Centuries, and 

 thousands of years, may have rolled away, between the time 

 in which these footsteps were impressed by Tortoises upon 

 the sands of their native Scotland, and the hour when they 

 are again laid bare, and exposed to our curious and ad- 

 miring eyes. Yet we behold them, stamped upon the rock, 

 distinct as the track of the passing animal upon the recent 

 snow ; as if to show that thousands of years are but as no- 

 thing amidst Eternity — and, as it were, in mockery of the 

 fleeting perishable course of the mightiest potentates among 

 mankind.* 



* A similar discovery of fossil footsteps has recently been made in Saxony, 

 at the village of Hessberg, near Hildburghausen, in several quarries of gray 

 quartzose sandstone, alternating with beds of red sandstone, nearly of the 

 same age with that of Dumfries. (See PI. 26'. 26". 26'".) 



The following account of them is collected from notices by Dr. Hohnbaum 

 and Professor Kaup. " The impressions of feet are partly hollow, and partly 

 in relief; all the depressions are upon the upper surfaces of slabs of sand- 

 stone, whilst the reliefs are only upon the lower surfaces, covering those 

 which bear the depressions. These reliefs are natural casts, formed in the 

 subjacent footsteps as in moulds. On one slab (see PI. 26',) six feet long by 

 five feet wide, there occur many footsteps of more than one animal, and of 

 various sizes. The larger impressions, which seem to be of the hind-foot 

 are eight inches long, and five wide. (See PI. 26".) One was twelve inches 

 long. Near to each large footstep, and at the regular distance of an inch 

 and a half before it, is a smaller print of a forefoot, four inches long and 



