REPORT OF THE STATE PALEONTOLOGIST I903 IQ 



markings have not been observed before either independently 

 or in connection with these trails. Twenty-six of these oval 

 scars are shown on the slab. Logan, Hall and other writers 

 on such markings have generally regarded them as made by 

 large trilobites and the undulated crossbars as caused by ^the 

 oscillating ventral appendages of these animals in crawling over 

 the long exposures of the sand beach at ebb tide. Professor 

 Woodworth, however, believes that they were produced by a 

 worm or large univalve mollusk and has given an account of 

 some experiments made by himself to demonstrate that the mark- 

 ings must have been caused by a single rather than a multiple 

 opposing surface, by the successive undulations of the gastropod 

 foot rather than by the multiple impression of a trilobite's legs. We 

 know in fact neither the remains of a trilobite nor of a gastropod 

 mollusk in these rocks large enough to make such trails. Either 

 may have been present and like the reptiles whose tracks are found by 

 thousands in the Triassic sandstones of the Connecticut valley, have 

 left no other evidence of itself. From theoretic considerations a 

 crawling patelloid gastropod of commanding dimensions would have 

 well fitted the marine fauna of these ancient Cambric times. 



This remarkable display of these ancient trails on the sands of 

 the primordial beach which skirted the primitive continent, now 

 the crystalline nucleus of the Adirondack mountains, had been 

 known to the countryside for many years but public attention was 

 drawn to it first by the publication referred to. A singular bit of folk- 

 lore has grown up about the trails as successive generations of set- 

 tlers have wondered at their nature. I have been seriously informed 

 by a venerable village philosopher that here was the very spot where 

 Christ, in accordance with Pentateuchal prophecy, trod on the Ser- 

 pent's head, and this interpretation seemed generally accepted in some 

 considerable portion of the community as the true meaning of the 

 trails. The oval scars well simulate the print of the human foot lying 

 at or across the end of the serpentine trails. 



The location of so striking a display of these trails afforded us an 

 opportunity for securing them for the museum. Accordingly an 

 agreement was entered into with the owner, Mr Palmer, in the form 



