CONNECTICUT RIVER SANDSTONE. 59 



PLATE XLIV. 



The four photographs of this Plate represent a continuous impression upon the 

 original stone, now in possession of Roswell Field, and the sections should be joined 

 together in the order they are lettered. 



Dr. Deane regarded this as the trail of some animal, made beneath the water. Others 

 have judged it to be of vegetable origin. 



PLATE XLV. 



Photographs of impressions of recent rain -drops, for comparison. 



PLATE XLVI. 



Photograph of the impression of rain-drops on the sandstone. Fine specimens are 

 very common in the collections of Amherst, Roswell Field, and the Boston Society of 

 Natural History. 



REMARKS. 



The student of the preceding pages will have noticed, that among the tracks men- 

 tioned in the text of Dr. Deane as made by birds, there are some which have since been 

 classed by Dr. Hitchcock as reptilian. Of these may be instanced Plate 5, and Plate 6, 

 fig. 1, as illustrations. Dr. Deane left no full description of many of the impressions of 

 this volume, but it may be stated, that, at an early period of his observations, he regarded 

 all the tracks represented on the Plates, from 3 to 20 inclusive, as unquestionably of 

 ornithic character. 



In the progress, however, of his labors, he found reason to distrust his early conclusions, 

 and the writer has a letter written by him to a friend in 1857, in which he says : — 



" My investigations, since I commenced, have revealed some remarkable facts, .and 1 

 am not sure but, in the end, the ornithic doctrine of the footprints must be abandoned. 

 Several facts have recently come to light that have a distinct bearing upon this question. 

 Footprints are found associated with a trail, or a fine grooved line running from one 

 foot to another, that cannot be explained upon any supposition other than that the animal 



