402 Scientific Intelligence. 



Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories (Hayden) 

 with publications extending from 1867 to 1878; Geological Explo- 

 ration of the Fortieth Parallel (King), 1871-80 ; Geographical 

 and Geological Surveys of the Rocky Mountain Region (Powell); 

 Geographical Surveys West of the 100th Meridian (Wheeler). 

 A vast amount of valuable detail is contained in the publications 

 of these early surveys and a complete catalogue and consolidated 

 index make it available. Investigators, students and librarians 

 will receive this bulletin with hearty thanks. 



2. Fossil Footprints of ^the Jura- Trias of North America ; 

 by Richard Swan Lull, Ph.D. Memoirs of the Boston Society 

 of Natural History, vol. v, number 11 ; pp. 461-557, with one 

 plate and numerous text-figures. — The subject of the ichnology 

 of the Connecticut River valley r so remarkably developed by 

 Edward Hitchcock in his works of 1848, 1858 and 1865, has 

 received few scientific contributions for the past forty years. 

 During this period, however, the study of the dinosaurs from the 

 west has very greatly extended the knowledge of early reptiles, 

 so that at the present time the conditions are much more favor- 

 able than formerly for a proper interpretation of the problemat- 

 ical footprints. The author has made an exhaustive study of the 

 type specimens of Hitchcock, most of them preserved in the col- 

 lections at Amherst College, and the results are given in this 

 memoir ; his conclusions are here quoted in full from the closing 

 pages. 



" The creatures, the record of whose existence has remained 

 impressed "upon the ancient shales and sandstones, may be divided 

 into two groups in accordance with their mode of progression : 

 those of bipedal and those of quadrupedal gait. The former, it 

 may be safely assumed, are, in all probability, dinosaurs, for 

 aside from man, many birds, and some modern lizards, they are 

 the only vertebrates whose gait when erect could have been a 

 true walk or run with alternating steps, which without excep- 

 tion the bipedal tracks show, there being no instance of the 

 record of a jumping form. The presence of birds in the new red 

 sandstone has not been proven, lizards are never habitual bipeds, 

 man is clearly out of the question, hence by elimination we nar- 

 row the possible origin of such tracks down to the dinosaurian 

 forms. This conclusion is strengthened by the presence of the 

 fossil bones of the Anchisauriclae, a family of primitive carnivo- 

 rous dinosaurs having affinities with the Megalosauria. 



The most abundant of the tracks are attributable to members 

 of that family, creatures ranging in size from about seven to 

 fourteen feet, so truly bipedal that the manus and tail never 

 impress. The pes is tetradactyl, but only exceptionally does the 

 claw of the strong grasping hallux leave a mark. The claws are 

 rather pointed and the whole foot is very bird-like. These 

 footprints form a natural group to which the generic name of 

 Anchisauripus is given and which corresponds to the family 

 Anchisauridae. 



