0. W. Jefs — Saurian Footprints in Trias. 451 



12,000 feet, and the general drowning of the Antillean continent, 

 the animals became extinct alilve on the continental margin and the 

 islands. 



The key to the physical evolution of the continent seems to be 

 locked up in the West Indies, yet it appears simple. Where the 

 studies will lead, it cannot be predicted. These are fundamental 

 questions in terrestrial movements and continent-making ; changes 

 of ocean currents and climates ; the production of glacial conditions, 

 and the distribution of the inhabitants. 



IV. — On a Series of Saurian Footprints from the Cheshire 



Trias (with a Note on Cheirotheuium)} 



By Osmund "W. Jeffs. 



EVERY geologist is familiar with the name of Storeton Quarry, 

 which may fitly be termed the " home of the Cheirotlieriiim," 

 celebrated as being the scene of the earliest discovery in England 

 of the fossil footprints, first described by Messrs. John Cunningham 

 and James Yates in 1839. 



Fifty years' study of these footprints has left their origin, so far 

 as exact identification with any known animal is concerned, a matter 

 of as much mystery as when Sir Eichai-d Owen gave attention to the 

 subject in his classical work on "Palaaontology." All the evidence, 

 in fact, which we have accumulated since that time has only brought 

 us to a negative position, and taught us that the explanation first 

 suggested by Owen, and thereafter copied into nearly all our popular 

 geological text-books, is not entirely correct. 



The forms described have all been obtained from the " footprint 

 bed " at the Storeton quarries (with the exception, named below, of 

 two specimens from Oxton Heath). This " footprint bed " is a thin 

 stratum of sandstone, with seams of white clay, together some three 

 or four feet in thickness, which is exposed at several points along 

 the quarry excavations, where it may be traced for some distance. 

 The geological structure of the quarries is fully described by Mr. 

 G. H. Morton, F.G.S., in "The Geology of the Country Around 

 Liverpool" (second edition). 



I first refer to the well-known impressions to which the name of 

 Cheir other iim was originally given by Dr. Kaup, under the idea 

 that the tracks were of mammalian character. In the event of their 

 being afterwards proved to be Saurian, the alternative name of 

 CMerosaurus was proposed. The latter term, being the more correct 

 — all the indications pointing to a reptilian origin of the footprints — 

 has been adopted by the British Museum authorities (see " Catalogue 

 of the Fossil Eeptilia and Amphibia in the British Museum"), but 

 it does not seem to have found its way into general geological 

 literature, or into our local museums. In a paper read before the 

 Liverpool Geological Association in June last, I described several 

 specimens of this genus, among which were the following : — 



1. Slab (No. 130) showing right-hand, hind and fore feet of 



1 Eead at the British. Association (Section C), Oxford, August 11th, 1894. 



