4A4: FOSSIL REMAINS. [Ch. XXn. 



hind foot, are generally 8 inches in length, and 5 in width, and one 

 was 12 inches long. Near each large footstep, and at a regular dis- 



Fig,»481. 



Line of footsteps on slab of sandstone. Hildbnrghausen, in Saxony. 



tance (about an inch and a half), before it, a similar print of a fore 

 foot, 4 inches long and 3 inches wide, occurs. The footsteps follow 

 each other in pairs, each pair in the same line, at intervals of 14 inches 

 from pair to pair. The large as well as the small steps show the great 

 toes alternately on the right and left side ; each step makes the print 

 of five toes, the first or great toe being bent inwards like a thumb. 

 Though the fore and hind foot differ so much in size, they are nearly 

 similar in form. 



The similar footmarks afterwards observed in a rock of correspond- 

 ing age at Stornton Hill were imprinted on five thin beds of clay, super- 

 imposed one upon the other in the same quarry, and separated by beds 

 of sandstone. On the lower surface of the sandstone strata, the solid 

 casts of each impression are salient, in high relief, and afford models 

 of the feet, toes, and claws of the animals which trod on the clay. On 

 the same surfaces Mr. J. Cunningham discovered (1839) distinct casts 

 of rain-drop markings. 



As neither in Germany nor in England any bones or teeth had been 

 met with in the same identical strata as the footsteps, anatomists in- 

 dulged, for several years, in various conjectures respecting the myste- 

 rious animals from which they might have been derived. Professor 

 Kaup suggested that the unknown quadruped might have been allied 

 to the Marsupialia ; for in the kangaroo the first toe of the fore foot 

 is in a similar manner set obliquely to the others, like a thumb, and the 

 •disproportion between the fore and hind feet is also very great. But 

 M. Link conceived that some of the four species of animals of which 

 the tracks had been found in Saxony might have been gigantic Batra- 

 chians ; and Dr. Buckland designated some of the footsteps as those 

 of a small web-footed animal, probably crocodilian. 



In the course of these discussions several naturalists of Liverpool, 

 in their report on the Storton quarries, declared their opinion that 

 each of the thin seams of clay in which the sandstone casts were 

 moulded had formed successively a surface above water, over which 

 the Cheirotherium and other animals walked, leaving impressions of 

 their footsteps, and that each layer had been afterwards submerged by 

 a sinking down of the surface, so that a new beach was formed at low 

 water above the former, on which other tracks were then made. The 

 repeated occurrence of ripple-marks at various heights and depths in 

 red sandstone of Cheshire had been explained in the same manner. It 



