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THE GEOLOGIST. 



[ Starting from a point near the village, and proceeding in a south direc- 

 tion along the margin of the bay, we see the slates which compose the 

 cliffs on our right, and the broken jagged rocks over which we scramble, 

 covered with the most beautiful series of ripple-marks it has ever been 

 our lot to see. Layer after layer, for hundreds of yards, as they crop out 

 from below each other, is covered with these hieroglyphs of the past. And 

 what adds considerably to their interest is, that the pattern of these rip- 

 plings is almost infinitely varied, scarcely any two surfaces being exactly 

 alike in its markings. But these splendid ripple-marks are not all of in- 

 terest that these slates contain. Studding the surface of the rocks, and 

 among the ripplings I have alluded to, are numberless impressions of the 

 same kind as those discovered by Mr. Taylor at Dalby. To what extent 

 these impressions may be found, I am, as yet, unable to say. I have 

 already traced them for a distance of about half a mile, throughout the 

 whole of which they are found continuously both on the rock laid bare by 

 the quarrymen, and also on the face of the untouched cliff. 



In shape these impressions are of an irregular oval form, the breadth 

 usually somewhat more than half the length. In size they are generally 

 about nine or ten inches long by about five or six inches wide ; but they are 

 often found of not much more than half that size, and in several instances 

 I have seen them of the enormous size of eighteen inches long by ten inches 

 wide ! I have presented to the Manchester Museum a slab containing an 

 impression of this extraordinary size, which in the rock formed one of a 

 group of three. 



In substance they are generally somewhat softer than the rock in 

 which they are enclosed, so much so, in fact, that it is no unusual thing 

 among the rocks lying between high- and low-water mark, and hence, of 

 course, subject to the direct action of the sea, to find slabs with the fossil 

 footmarks, more or less washed out of the rock, and the matrix presenting 

 the appearance of a deep water-worn hole. Above high-water mark they 

 are strongly coloured with iron — a circumstance which enables the seeker 

 to distinguish them with great facility, as they show with great distinct- 

 ness upon the weathered light-grey face of the cliffs. Their faces also are 

 usually thickly studded with pyrites and fragments of quartz, etc., of a 

 rounded form : these are not merely coated over the surfaces of the im- 

 pressions, but are in great part enclosed within their substance, so that 

 when you pick out one of them with the point of your chisel, it leaves be- 

 hind it a deep indentation. This accounts for the curiously pitted appear- 

 ance of many of the impressions. 



With respect to the order in which these imprints occur, I regret that I 

 have not now the opportunity of entering into such minute particulars as 

 should enable the readers of the ' Geologist ' to judge of their nature for 

 themselves. The distance over which these imprints are known to extend, 

 and the fact that they are the footmarks not of one but of a great number 

 of animals, while facilitating, from a personal inspection, our arrival at a 

 satisfactory conclusion respecting their nature, greatly increase the diffi- 

 culty of giving within anything like a reasonable space a clear idea of the 

 order of their occurrence in this locality. In as few words as possible, 

 however, I will try to indicate one or two of the more prominent features 

 of this part of the subject, leaving a fuller detail for a future communica- 

 tion. 



Occurring in great numbers and over a very considerable area, these 

 impressions seem, at first sight, to be scattered over the face of the rocks 

 without the least order or regularity ; a more careful examination, how- 

 ever, reveals an amount of regularity in the order of their occurrence 



