298 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



Ti|>ton, through Gravelly Hill, Perry, and Great Barr. At 

 the latter place, the author states, Silurian limestone has 

 been found close to the surface, with traces of carboniferous 

 rocks and coal, dipping under the new red sandstone on the 

 Birmingham side of the axis; thus affording evidence in 

 favour of the recently expressed opinion, that the South 

 Staffordshire coal field extends under that town. 



Notice of the Fossil Footsteps in the new Red Sandstone quarry 

 at Lymm, in Cheshire^ hy Mr. Hawkshaw. 



The quarry in which these footsteps were detected was 

 situate at a short distance to the east of Lymm, south of the 

 turnpike road to Altringham ; the general dip of the strata 

 was about 5° to the S.S.W., and the quarry was near the 

 outcrop of the beds, which consisted of alternations of red 

 and grey sandstone in beds of a few inches thick, grey marls, 

 and laminated shales ; the rock underlying these strata was 

 a thick bedded sandstone, deeply impressed with oxide of 

 iron, and very indistinctly stratified. The impressions varied 

 in length from |ths of an inch to Ij inch long in some slabs; 

 on others they were 3 or 4 inches in length, and upon one 

 dark red slab was an impression 10 inches long, and of a 

 peculiar form, as if the foot which made it had been fur- 

 nished with claws. On a slab of 20 inches diameter there 

 were two impressions, a small one preceding one which was 

 9i inches in length; another similar footstep was 7| inches 

 long. Both these last-mentioned footmarks were covered 

 with small papillae, about 100 to the square inch in the 

 larger specimen, and about 220 in the smaller; their distinct 

 appearance and arrangement were described by Mr. Hawk- 

 shaw as suggesting the idea that the feet of the animal which 

 formed them was furnished with a rough skin. 



