(HAP T E R VIII. 



THE FOSSIL FOOTPRINTS OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY. 



In the American Journal of Science for 1<S:->C> Prof. Edward Hitch- 

 cock described a series of fossil footprints occurring in the sandstone 

 of the Connecticut Valley, attention to which had been culled by Dr. 

 JameS Deane, of Greenfield, the latter's notice having been first 

 directed to them by a Mr. Dexter Marsh, of Deerfield, who found 

 them among- some flagstones being laid in front of his house. Deane, 

 who was a practicing physician, was quick to realize their geological 

 interest and apparently also recognized his own inability to do the 

 matter justice, and so referred them to Doctor Hitchcock. 



Those first found were from a quarry in Montague; later finds were 

 made at the so-called Lily Pond quarry at Turners Falls, a quarry 

 which has yielded in the past and still occasionally yields the finest 

 examples yet produced. Hitchcock described and figured tracks which 

 he regarded as having been made by as many as seven different species 

 of animals. His conclusions regarding their origin were, first, that 

 they were all the impressions of biped animals; second, that they could 

 not have been made by any known biped except birds, and third that 

 they well corresponded with the tracks of birds in having the same 

 ternary division of the feet, with frequently, and perhaps always, the 

 toes terminated with claws, as do birds. To these supposed bird tracks 

 he gave the name Ornithichnites (from opv is and r/jroo"), signifying 

 stony bird tracks. Five years of further examination enabled him to 

 swell the list of species to 27, which were described and figured, natural 

 size, in his final report on the geology of Massachusetts, 1841. 



Up to this last date he had found no certain evidence that any of the 

 tracks were made by quadrupeds, yet a considerable proportion of 

 them bore so strong a resemblance to saurian reptiles that he denomi- 

 nated them sauroidichnites, or tracks resembling those of saurians, 

 intending, however, by the term merely to convey an intimation that 

 they might prove reptilian. To the others he now applied the name 

 ornithoidichnites, or tracks resembling those of birds. To animal 

 tracks of all kinds, and of whatever nature he proposed the general 

 name ichnolites. 



At the April meeting, 1842, of the American Association of Geolo- 

 gists, Hitchcock brought the matter up once more, describing five 

 new species, one of which, 0. tubt mw, from Pompton, New Jersey, 

 was the first thus far found outside of the Connecticut Valley. 



xat mcs 1904 40 625 



