322 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
company, I observed that many of tlie slabs were most decidedly 
ripple- Qiarked. This is, I believe, the first time that such appear- 
ances have been observed in the island ; indeed, with the ex- 
ception of some doubtful fucoids, no fossils have been met with in 
these beds. The ripple-marks, however, in this instance, were so dis- 
tinct, that no doubt remained in my mind as to their sliallow-water 
deposition. The same feature also led me more carefully to look 
out for other signs of littoral deposits, in the shape of worm-tracks, 
sun-cracks, or rain-prints. Judge then my surprise — and, need 
I say, delight ? — upon observing the impression of what I believe 
to be footprints upon a layer of rock immediately below the ripple- 
marked bed. There were three such imprints visible, each being about 
six or eight inches out of the straight line, and alternately on each 
side. The impressions are about two feet six inches apart, and seemed 
all to have been formed by the same agency. The most distinct of 
them was broke^n just at the end, and a transverse section of the 
imprint shows it to be lenticular, or, in other words, that the pre- 
sent surface-appearance is not the original one, but is caused by the 
filling up of the indentation. The outline of each print is remark- 
ably distinct, and even where the surface-matter has fallen off" the 
line is well preserved. The tout ensemhle is very much like the 
dotted outline of the Frotichnites figured in Owen's Palaeontology, and 
which have been found in the Potsdam Sandstone of Canada, and 
more recently in Lower Silurian rocks in Scotland. What seems to 
bear out the fact that these are footprints, is that the quarrymen re- 
marked they had frequently met with them. I have briefl}" mentioned 
this fact, intendiug at some future period to take up the subject 
again when my data are more numerous. 
The position of the beds containing the supposed footprints is 
towards the top of the Manx Cambrians ; and near the place where I 
obtained the slab which contains them, a fault occurs, which is beauti- 
fully seen from the sea. This has thrown the layers up into an almost 
perpendicular position on the right-hand side, whilst the otliers on 
the left abut against them, something after the manner in which the 
books on a shelf recline against the end ones when intervening ones 
have been taken away. 
It is in the perpendicular beds, a few yards away from the fault, 
that the impressions are met with, along with the ripple-marks. 
The slabs are quarried in great lengths, and are very equal in 
thickness. Close to the bed containing the impressions there are 
