PART II. CHAPTER XIX. 



239 



Lower New Red Sandstone. 



(see Fig. 238.). In each pair of large and small steps, the 

 great toes are turned alternately both to the right or both to the 

 left.* 



For this unknown animal, Professoi*Kaup has proposed the 

 provisional name of Chirotherium ; and he conjectures that it was 

 a mammiferous quadruped, allied to the marsupialia.f 



Fig. 239. 



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



In the kangaroo, says Dr. Buckland, 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. If it should be eventually proved that this ani- 

 mal was really marsupial, these fossil relics belong to the most 

 ancient mammiferous quadruped yet known to paloeontologists. 



It would scarcely be possible to draw a distinct line of de- 

 marcation between the Keuper and Bunter Sandstein, in Germa- 

 ny, where they are not barren of fossils, if the Muschelkalk did 

 not intervene between them. In England, therefore, where this 

 calcareous formation is wanting, and where there are scarcely 

 any organic remains in. the Upper New Red marl and sandstone, 

 we cannot feel assured that the divisions a. and c. of our Table, 

 p. 236., do really coincide with the German Keuper and Bunter 

 Sandstein. But it has been found convenient in the counties of 

 Salop, Stafford, and Worcester, to divide the saliferous marls 

 from the inferior quartzose conglomerate in the manner above 

 indicated. 



LOWER NEW RED SANDSTONE AND MAGNESIAN LIMESTONE. 



We now come to the Lower New Red system, the position of 

 which can best be determined in Germany, because it is there 

 interposed between the Coal and Bunter Sandstein, or oldest part 

 of the " Upper New Red," above described. In the south-west 

 of England the New Red sandstone formation is unconformable 

 to the Coal (see Fig. 232.) ; but in the north-east of England 

 Professor Sedgwick has shown that the same series is conform- 

 able to the carboniferous strata, and passes into them. In other 

 words, the movements which deranged " the Coal" in the 



* One of these slabs is now in the British Museum, 

 t See Buckland's Bridgew., p. 263. 



