984 James Deane's Illustrations of Fossil Footmarks. 
submerged and exposed to the solar action when it was th 
resort of multitudes of birds, great and small. 
Quadrupeds congregated with the birds. The species 
whose imprints I have discovered are quite small, apparently 
of the Batrachian or marsupial order, there being the same 
relative distinction between the anterior and posterior feet. 
Bones have not yet been found associated with imprints; it 
may be that the argillaceous materials of the rock destroyed 
them, but the probable conjecture is, that if the bodies of 
these animals were deposited upon the narrow tract upon 
which the footsteps were impressed, they were swept away by 
the succeeding overflow of the waters. The sandstone beds 
are inclined between five and thirty degrees, and it is of 
. Course upon the upper extremity or limit of the inclined sur- 
faces that explorations are made. "These sandstone rocks are 
truly prolific in the evidences of ancient life, and the zealous 
explorer of their contents will. never go unrewarded for his 
labors. In this brief notice’ there are many important con- 
siderations which cannot even be alluded to; itis necessarily 
very imperfect, written without method or arrangement; but if 
any ideas have been communicated or confirmed, it will not 
have been written in vain, and the subject may be resum 
at a future time. 
These eloquent inscriptions upon the sandstones of Con- 
necticut River teach a lesson and a moral which the genlus 
of man never has accomplished: They teach us of the un- 
changeableness of creative design in perpetuating races of 
animals through a period of time which cannot be compre- 
hended or even conjectured, contrasted with the frailty of all 
human schemes. The transit of a bird over the earth’s SUI" 
face is as enduring as the earth itself, while the proudest mon" 
uments of man crumble to dust, or, as it is faithfully expressed, 
the places that once knew him know him no more forever. - 
Greenfield, August, 1845. 
