524 Geological Society: — Anniversary Address. 



ICHNOLOGY. 



About twelve years ago we witnessed the creation of a new de- 

 partment in geological investigations, viz. the science of Ichnology, 

 founded on the evidence of footsteps made by the feet of animals 

 upon the ancient strata of the earth ; this new method commenced 

 with the recognition of the footmarks of reptiles on the New Red 

 Sandstone near Dumfries, and not long after (1834) was followed 

 by most curious and unexpected discoveries in Saxony and Ame- 

 rica. The Chirotherium of Hessberg and Ornithichnites of Con- 

 necticut were among its early results. Our own country has during 

 the last two years been abundantly productive of similar appearances 

 in many localities. 



In recent excavations for making a dock at Pembray, near 

 Llanelly, in Pembrokeshire, tracks of deer and of large oxen have 

 been found on clay subjacent to a bed of peat, the lower peat being 

 moulded into the footsteps ; similar impressions were also found upon 

 the upper surface of the peat beneath a bed of silt, and bones both of 

 deer and oxen in the peat itself. ~ Footmarks of deer have been also 

 noticed in Mr. Talbot's excavations for a harbour near Margam bur- 

 rows on the east of Neath. 



Near Liverpool Mr. Cunningham has successfully continued his 

 researches begun in 1838, respecting the footsteps of Chirotherium 

 and other animals in the New Red Sandstone at Storeton Hill, on 

 the west side of the Mersey. These footsteps occur on five con- 

 secutive beds of clay in the same quarry, the clay beds are very 

 thin, and having received the impressions of the feet, afforded a 

 series of moulds in which casts were taken by the succeeding depo- 

 sits of sand, now converted into sandstone. The casts of the feet 

 are salient in high relief on the lower surfaces of the beds of sand- 

 stone, giving exact models of the feet and toes and claws of these 

 mysterious animals, of which scarcely a single bone or tooth has 

 yet been found, although we are assured by the evidence before us 

 of the certainty of their existence at the time when the New Red 

 Sandstone was in process of deposition. 



Further discoveries of the footsteps of Chirotherium and five or 

 six smaller reptiles in the New Red Sandstone of Cheshire, War- 

 wickshire and Salop, have been brought before us by Sir P. Eger- 

 ton, Mr. I. Taylor, jun., Mr. Strickland, and Dr. Ward. 



Mr. Cunningham, in a sequel to his paper on the footmarks at 

 Storeton, has described impressions on the same slabs with them, 

 derived from drops of rain that fell upon thin laminae of clay inter- 

 posed between the beds of sand. The clay impressed with these 

 prints of rain drops acted as a mould, which transferred the form of 

 every drop to the lower surface of the next bed of sand deposited 

 upon it, so that entire surfaces of several strata in the same quarry 

 are respectively covered with moulds and casts of drops of rain that 

 fell whilst these strata were in process of formation. 



On the surface of one stratum at Storeton, impressed with large 

 footmarks of a Chirotherium, the depth of the holes formed by the 



