174 Fossil Footsteps. 



2. Fossil Footsteps in Sandstone and Graywacke ; by Prof. 

 Edward Hitchcock. 



TO THE EDITOR. ' ' 



Sir — During the last autumn, my attention was excited afresh to 

 the subject of fossil footmarks, in consequence of the discovery of 

 several new localities in the valley of the Connecticut river, both in 

 Massachusetts and Connecticut. I have now found them along that 

 river, a distance of eighty miles, at numerous quarries ; and as the 

 result of my recent examinations, I am now prepared to describe 

 fourteen new species — double the number described in my first pa- 

 per, contained in this Journal for January, 1836. In general they 

 are more distinctly marked upon the rock than those formerly de- 

 scribed ; and some of them bear in some respects so near a resem- 

 blance to the feet of living Saurians, that I have denominated them 

 Sauroidichnites. But I have no certain evidence as yet, that any 

 of them were made by four-footed animals, although in respect to 

 two or three species I have strong suspicions that such was the fact. 

 I have sometimes thought they might have been made by Pterodac- 

 tyles; yet they have in general fewer toes than those described by 

 Cuvier and Buckland. 



Within a few weeks past, I have found on the flag-stones in the 

 city of New York, some marks which I suspect were made by the 

 feet of a didactylous quadruped, which, like the Marsupialia, moved 

 by leaps. The rock is slaty graywacke, from the banks of the Hud- 

 son, between Albany and the Highlands. They are by no means as 

 distinct as the footmarks on the new red sandstone above described ; 

 nor do I feel very confident of the correctness of the opinion ex- 

 pressed above ; but as I discovered them in several places, both in 

 New York and Brooklyn, and found their appearance similar, I can- 

 not come to any other conclusion at present, than the one just named ; 

 although the inference which follows from it, viz. that quadrupeds 

 existed during the deposition of the graywacke group, seems too 

 much like a dream not to excite strong doubts as to the correctness 

 of that conclusion. 



I had prepared a paper, containing a full account of all the fossil 

 footmarks mentioned above, wuh numerous drawings, both of these 

 and of the tracks of living birds. Yet I have concluded it will be 

 wiser to delay its publication till I have re-examined some of the lo- 

 calities next summer, should life and health be spared. Yet I take 



