IMPRESSIONS OF THE PAST 25 



curious complicated trails of animals believed to be akin 

 to the king crab; broad, ribbed, ribbon-like paths 

 ascribed to trilobites; then faint scratches of insects, 

 and the shallow, palmed prints cf salamanders, and the 

 occasional slender sprawl of a lizard; then footprints, 

 big and little, of the horde of Dinosaurs and, finally, 

 miles above the Cambrian, marks of mammals. Some- 

 times, like the tracks of salamanders and reptiles in the 

 carboniferous rocks of Pennsylvania and Kansas, these 

 are all we have to tell of the existence of air-breathing 

 animals. Again, as with the iguanodon, the foot to fit 

 the track may be found in the same layer of rock, but 

 this is not often the case. 



Although footprints in the rocks must often have 

 been seen, they seem to have attracted little or no notice 

 from scientific men until about 1830 to 1835, when they 

 were almost simultaneously described both in Europe 

 and America; even then, it was some time before they 

 were generally conceded to be actually the tracks of 

 animals, but, like worm burrows and trails, were looked 

 upon as the impressions of sea-weeds. 



The now famous tracks in the "brown stone" of the 

 Connecticut Valley seem to have first been seen by 

 Pliny Moody in 1802, when he ploughed up a specimen 

 on his farm, showing small imprints, which later on 

 were popularly called the tracks of Noah's raven. The 

 discovery passed without remark until in 1835 the 

 footprints came under the observation of Dr. James 

 Deane, who, in turn, called Professor Hitchcock's 

 attention to them. The latter at once began a system- 

 atic study of these impressions, publishing his first 

 account in 1836 and continuing his researches for many 

 years, in the course of which he brought together the 

 fine collection in Amherst College. At that time Dino- 

 saurs were practically unknown, and it is not to be 



