Tracks of Animals in Variegated Satidstonc. 255 



Art. V. — Notice of Tracks of Animals in Variegated Sandstone 

 at Polzig, between Ronnehurg and Weissenfels ; by Hr. Dr. 



B. COTTA.* 



Translated for this Journal by Rev. Prof. W. A. Larned, of Yale College. 



While recently engaged in revising the preparations for the 

 geological map of Saxony, in the country between Ronneburg 

 and Weissenfels, I frequently met with stone slabs in the region 

 of the variegated sandstone, which were covered on one side with 

 the same sort of reticular padding as the track-sandstone of Hild- 

 burghausen. These net-formed pads could have originated in 

 no other way, as every thing about them shows, than by the fill- 

 ing up of clefts occasioned by the drying of thin layers of clay. 

 But if thin beds of clay formed between sandstone strata, had 

 time and opportunity for drying before the deposition of a new 

 layer of sand, then manifestly there existed some of the essential 

 pre-requisites for the preservation of ancient foot-prints; it would 

 only be necessary that there should be animals at that period to 

 roam at will over the soft clay, before the water covered it anew 

 with sand. Under these impressions, I began to search for foot- 

 tracks on my way to Polzig, where, as I was informed, the slabs 

 were abundant. Before reaching the quarries at Polzig and Klein- 

 Porthen, I observed at a village, in a heap of building stones, sev- 

 eral small elevated figures, which arrested my attention on account 

 of their similarity in form and size ; their form, however, appear- 

 ed so remarkable that I could hardly persuade myself they were 

 casts of tracks, although I was in search of such. On arriving, 

 however, at the quarry of Polzig, I obtained full evidence that 

 these figures actually originated from the footsteps of animals. 

 Several large slabs were here entirely covered with them, and in 

 one place at the first quarry, on the left slope of the valley above 

 Polzig, I found the track-stratum still remaining, a portion dug 

 under and covered on the under side entirely with reliefs. Such 

 is the history of the discovery, though it is but just to say, that 

 had not Dr. Sickler led the way, I should never have thought of 



* Neues Jahrbuch filr Mineralogie, Geognosie, Geologie und Petrefaktenkunde, 

 herausgHgeben von Dr. K. C. v. Leonhard und Dr. H. G. Bronn, Professoren an 

 der Universitat zu Heidelberg. Erstes Heft. 1839. 



