508 , [Jan. 22, 



Section of Fiiench RiVEa of TAXMAGournE (G^ miles). 



5. Grey and red sandstone and shale. Calamites, &c. 



4. Red sandstones and shales with a few grey beds. 



3. Light grey and red sandstone and shale. ' 



2. Slate, limestone and grit with scales of Holoptychius. ] 



1, Trappean rocks. ^ 



When examining the red sandstones, near Tatmagouche, last.: 

 summer, I found in one of the beds a few footmarks of an unknown 

 animal, specimens of which Avere sent to this society. They were 

 mere scratches made by the points of the toes or claws, and there- 

 fore could give few indications of the form of the feet which pro- 

 duced them. Their arrangement, however, appeared to indicate 

 that the animal was a biped, and their form is quite analogous to 

 that of the marks left by our common sandpiper, when running 

 over a firm sandy shore. On a subsequent examination of the 

 same place, I found a series of footmarks of another animal, and 

 obtained a slab with casts of eight impressions, which I send with 

 this paper. In this specimen the tracks are somewhat injured by 

 the rain-marks which cover the slab, and the clay in which they 

 were made was probably too soft to give good impressions ; it has, 

 however, preserved a furrow which must have been caused by the 

 body or tail of the animal trailing over it. Many of the beds in 

 the neighbourhood of that containing these footmarks are rippled, 

 rain-marked, or covered with worm tracks ; and as such indications 

 of a littoral origin are not infrequent in other parts of the newer 

 coal formation, it may be anticipated that many interesting relics 

 of terrestrial animals will in future be discovered. At present, 

 however, as no quarrying operations are carried on in the red beds, 

 it is difficult to obtain access to the surfaces on which tracks might 

 be expected to occur. The only vegetable remains found in the red 

 sandstones of Tatmagouche are some of those irregular branching 

 stains which have been considered as fucoidal marks ; but in a bed 

 of grey sandstones above the strata containing tracks, I found 

 Calamites, Endogenites, Stigmariaficoides, and fragments of carbon- 

 ized wood. In a fragment from a dark calcareous bed near this 

 place, I found a portion of a fossil plant covered with shells of a 

 species of Spirorbis, and a few small scales of ganoid fishes. A 

 bed of limestone, similar to that of Cape John, has been observed 

 in the sandstones of Tatmagouche, but no coal, gypsum, or conglo- 

 merate have been seen. It is probable that most of the sandstones 

 and shales, seen in the French river section, are equivalent to the 

 newest of the strata seen near Pictou. 



To give more precise views of the composition and appearance 

 of the newer coal formation, and of the diffijrences between it and 



