ITOTES AND QUERIES. 
315 
Stereognatlius ooUticus, Charleswoeth, sp., Great Oolite, Stonesfield, 
described by Owen in Quart. Joiirn. Geol. Soc. (1857), vol. xiii. p. 
l,pl. i. 
Sus anttquus, Owen, Red Crag, Eamsliolt, Suffolk; Quart. Journ. Gcol. 
Sop. (1856), vol. xii. p. 223, fig. 11. 
Sus palcBocharus, Owen, Red Crag, Sutton, Suffolk ; Quart. Journ. Geol. 
Soc. (1856), vol. xii. p. 223, tig. 10. 
Tapirus priscus, Owen, Red Crag, Sutton, Suffolk ; Quart. Journ. Geol. 
Soc. (1856), vol. xii. p. 233, fig. viii. viii.a. ix. 
Triconodon mordax, Owen, PurhecJc, Durdlestone Bay, Dorset ; ' Palrcon- 
tology,' 2nd ed. p. 351. 
Ziphius, Owen, Red Cm^, Felixstow [D'wjjlodon, Gervais), Suffolk; Quart. 
Journ. Geol. Soc. (1856), vol. xii. p. 228, fig. 24. 
It would be very desirable to make this list as complete as possible, and 
notices from our readers of any omissions would oblige. — S. J. Mackie. 
FooTrRiNTS IN the Cambkian (?) Slates. — The readers of the ' Geo- 
logist' will no doubt remember the announcement by Mr. John Taylor, in 
the ' Geologist' for September, 1862, of his discovery of what he regarded 
as reptilian footprints in the Manx Cambrians at Dalby, near Peel, and 
the controversy to M'hich that discovery gave rise. Without attempting 
to review that controversy in detail, I may say that while Mr. Taylor 
himself asserted the ichnolitieal character of the imprints he discovered, in 
other quarters the most diverse opinions were expressed respecting them. 
Some thought that they might be specimens of some gigantic species of 
lingula ; others denied their organic origin altogether, and regarded them 
as nodules, which are found occasionally occurring with a certain degree of 
regularity; others again, and these were by far the more numerous class, 
declined to express any decided opinion respecting them, the character 
and amount of the evidence produced by Mr. Taylor not being, in their 
judgment, such as would warrant the forming a definite opinion on a sub- 
ject of such great difficulty. And so, with a general feeling that this dis- 
covery did possess a certain amount of palaeontokgical value, and yet with 
a conviction equally general that it was almost impossible either to fix the 
amount of that value or make any practical use of it, this discovery of 
footprints in the Cambrian Slates of the Isle of Man has remained in 
abeyance for nearly a year, waiting till more satisfactory evidence should 
turn up in other quarters in the Isle of Man or elsewhere. This evidence 
I am now able to furnish, and that, too, in such abundance and of such a 
description, that I believe it is now quite possible to arrive at a perfectly 
satisfactory conclvision respecting the real nature and pala^ontological value 
of these much-disputed " footprints." Having recently come to reside at 
Laxey, and knowing that at several points along the neighbouring coast 
the rocks furnish the most decisive proofs of a shallow-water origin, I set 
myself to examine carefully these localities, in order to see whether they 
would furnish that further evidence which I believed necessary to the 
satisfactory settlement of the question respecting the nature of the supposed 
footprints. My search has at length proved eminently successful. One of 
these localities, Laxey Bay, yields these "footprints" in great abundance. 
This bay, one of great width but of inconsiderable depth, is backed through- 
out almost the wiiole of its extent by tall precipitous cliffs, rising out of 
the water at an extremely high angle to a height of from 80 to 200 feet. 
Some of these clifis at the north end of the bay, and contiguous to the old 
village of Laxey, have been quarried for building purposes, but not to any 
great extent, and almost the whole of the picturesque scene remains in its 
natural condition, untouched by human hand, and overgrown with golden 
gorse and tufts of waving ferns. 
