R. S. Lull — Life of the Connecticut Trias. 397 



Akt. XXXIY. — The Life of the Connecticut Trias ; by 



ElCHAED SwANN LBfel^ 



[Contribution from the Paleontological Laboratory, Peabocty Museum, Yale 

 University, New Haven, Conn., U. S. A.] 



Introduction. 



The Connecticut Valley. 



Extent. 



Age and geological history. 



Theories of deposition of sediments. 

 Physical environment. 

 Vegetal environment. 

 The Fauna. 



Invertebrates. 



Vertebrates. 

 Resume. 



One of the most interesting chapters in the earth's past his- 

 tory is that of the time when there were laid down the Triassic 

 strata of the famed Connecticut valley, interesting in the pro- 

 fusion of its indicated life, and fascinating in the baffling 

 obscurity which shrouds most of its former denizens, the only 

 records of whose existence are " footprints on the sands of 

 time." 



It is not surprising, therefore, that geologists should have 

 turned to the collecting and deciphering of such records with 

 zeal ; nor is it to be marveled at that, after the exhaustive 

 researches of the late President Hitchcock, workers should 

 have turned to more productive fields, leaving the footprints 

 aside as relics of little moment compared with the wonderful 

 discoveries of the great unknown West. 



Except for small summary papers by Professor Charles H. 

 Hitchcock containing descriptions of some new species, and 

 occasional papers by other authors, nothing was done from the 

 time of the publication of Edward Hitchcock's notable " Ich- 

 nology of New England " in 1858, and the Supplement to it 

 in 1865, until 1904, when a new study of the tracks in the light 

 of recent paleontology was published by the present author. 



Skeletal remains which were brought to light from time to 

 time were described mainly by Professor Marsh in this Journal, 

 and by E. Hitchcock, Jr. (1865) and by Cope (1869) ; and later 

 summarized by Marsh in his " Dinosaurs of North America" 

 (1896). 



A final, more exhaustive study of the skeletal remains was 

 made by Professor Fried rich von Huene in his " Dinosaurier 



* Extracted from a monograph on " Triassic Life of the Connecticut 

 Valley," to be published as a Bulletin of the Connecticut Geological and 

 Natural History Survey. By permission of the Director, Professor William 

 North Eice. 



