60 I Senatk 



CATALOGUE OF FOSSILS, 



BELONGING TO THE NEW-REDSANDSTONE PERIOD OF THE CON- 

 NECTICUT EIVER YALLET : 



COLLECTED BY THE LATE DEXTER MAESH OF GREENFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS, 



And Purchased at the Administrator's Sale of his Cabinet in September 1863. 



OKDER DIPODICHNITES (Hitchcock). Two-footed Tracks. 



SUBORDER ORNITHOIDICHNITES. Bird-tracks. 



No. 1. A Slab of Micaceous Sandstone from South-Hadley Falls on 



'the Connecticut River, five feet six inches by two feet six inches, 



with impressions of two colossal footprints each sixteen inches 



long : stride or length of step, three feet four inches. 



These tracks have been figured and described by Prof. Hitchcock in 



his Geology of Massachusetts, as the Ornithoidichnites giganteus. 



No. 2. A Slab of Micaceous Sandstone from Turner's Falls on the 

 Connecticut River, twenty-eight by eighteen inches. 



This slab, upon its upper surface, shows three rows of tracks, deeply 

 indented in the stone, and running in different directions. These tracks 

 are from four to five inches in length, and belong to the Pachtdacttli 

 or thick-toed tracks of Prof. Hitchcock. 



A beautiful and satisfactory illustration results from the circumstance 

 that the lines of the three rows of tracks cross each other at nearly the 

 same point, and where, fortunately, a track was impressed by each bird; 

 track number two partly defacing track number one, and track number 

 three in like manner partly defacing track number two, thus proving and 

 showing conclusively the 'order ' in which the bipeds travelled. 

 The reverse or underside of the slab is covered with minute elongated hemi- 

 spheres of the same substance as the stone. These projections are casts 

 in relief from the indentations on the upper surface of the underlying 

 stratum ; and are due, in the opinions of Prof. Hitchcock and other dis- 

 tinguished g3ologists and naturalists, to drops of rain. ' The impressions 

 are elongated in a particular direction, as if the drops struck the surface 

 obliquely; appearing in fact as if a wind accompanied the rain.' Three 

 consecutive footprints in relief, one right and two left, each three and a 

 half inches in length, accompany the rain drops. 



