398 JR. S. Lull — Life of the Connecticut Trias. 



der Aussereuropseischen Trias." No serious attempt, how- 

 ever, has been made to reconstruct the physical conditions of 

 the Trias and to repeople the Connecticut lands of that time 

 with their living, breathing, strenuous inhabitants. The pur- 

 pose of this essay, therefore, is to reconstruct the environment, 

 both physiographic and climatic, to clothe it with its proper 

 vegetative life, and to discuss as fully as may be the animate 

 nature of that distant day. 



One of the most remarkable features of the fossil remains of 

 the Connecticut valley is the dearth of actual bones and the 

 marvellous abundance of footprints — conditions exactly the 

 reverse of those found in other fossil fields, for, outside the 

 Triassic of New England and New Jersey, footprints are rarely 

 met with, whereas the bones in some localities are nearly as nu- 

 merous as in the Valley of Dry Bones, the vision of which was 

 vouchsafed to Ezekiel. Somewhat similar conditions to those 

 in the Connecticut valley seem to prevail in the Southwest and 

 elsewhere, but in no other known locality is the profusion of 

 footprints so great. In spite of this the discovery of bones 

 preceded a scientific appreciation of the tracks by nearly a 

 score of years, though doubtless the latter were often seen by 

 observers like Pliny Moody in 1802, who failed to realize their 

 great significance. The reference of one to the footprint of 

 "Noah's raven" is probably only one of the many similar inter- 

 pretations in the folk-lore of the Connecticut valley. 



The profusion of species of animals represented by the tracks, 

 which of course included the creatures the skeletons of which 

 are known, is, so far as my present knowledge goes, as great if 

 not greater than that of any other known vertebrate fauna of 

 prehistoric times, and emphasizes once more the usual incom- 

 pleteness of our geologic record and the countless multitudes 

 of creatures which peopled our globe in the more remote ages. 



The Connecticut Valley. 



The tracks of the Newark system, which include the fossils 

 under consideration, occupy a number of areas along the eastern 

 coast of North America, of which the best known are that of 

 the far-famed Connecticut valley, and the adjacent one stretch- 

 ing from New York through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and 

 Maryland into Virginia. 



The Connecticut valley area, extending as it does across the 

 states of Massachusetts and Connecticut, follows in general the 

 depression now occupied by the Connecticut river, except in 

 its lower course where the river forsakes the ancient valley at 

 Midclletown and cuts its way through the Eastern Highlands, 

 reaching the Sound far to the eastward. The length of the 



