ste aain e a a a aaa a aa Sana eet ee le 
1877.] Concerning Foot-Prints. 417 
“The giant ruler of the valley,” however, was the great Oto- 
-zoum, a huge biped reptile, whose foot-prints were each twenty 
inches in length by sixteen inches in breadth, and separated by 
strides three feet long; its great weight pressed down the sands 
as if an elephant had walked over them. ‘Together with these 
gigantic foot-prints are found the tracks of other and much 
smaller denizens of the shore. The smallest of the Triassic rep- 
tiles, as indicated by its track, could not have exceeded a com- 
mon frog in size. Associated with these are found the trails of 
: worms and curious markings supposed to have been made by the 
fins of fishes, which we know inhabited the waters in great num- 
bers. 
The smooth, glossy surfaces of the slabs bearing the foot- 
prints have often received other inscriptions which are scarcely 
less interesting than the records of animal life. Frequently the 
surface of the rock is pitted with impressions made by falling 
rain-drops, and we can even tell the direction from which the 
wind blew during the time that those ancient showers watered 
the earth. The ripple-marks plainly tell that the soft mud was 
covered with water, which then, as now, broke in ripples on the 
beach. The sun-cracks no less clearly prove that the wet mud 
was left exposed to the heat of the sun, which caused it to shrink 
and crack, and that the surface was again covered with water 
which filled the cracks with sand and thus secured their preserva- 
tion. These combined records show that the tide ebbed and 
flowed along those ancient shores, and that when it was at its 
lowest, it left exposed a broad stretch of shining mud, like that 
which borders the Bay of Fundy at low tide; upon this plastic 
surface the strange, uncouth monsters that emerged from the 
deep impressed the imperishable records of their existence. 
We will leave to our readers the pleasure of picturing th 
strange scenes that filled the valley of the Connecticut in those 
distant days, when conifers, cycads, and ferns of tropical growth 
~ formed a varied and beautiful border to the valley and furnished 
Shelter and food for the singular creatures whose footsteps we 
' have followed. 
To those who would drink deeper of this ‘ foot-print lore,” 
We recommend the writings of Hitchcock, Deane, Lea, Owen, 
ete. ; or, still better than all, to pry open the leaves of the an- 
Gent tile library of nature, and interpret for themselves ‘the 
cuniform impressions with which they are inscribed. 
VOL. XI. — No. 7. 27 
