HaWKESBURY- W I ANA MATT A. 
191 
and may have pursued the line of march of triumphant 
conquerors, whose armies trampled down the most 
mighty kingdoms of the world. The winds and 
storms have utterly obliterated the ephemeral impres- 
sions in their course. Not a track remains of a single 
foot or a single hoof of all the countless millions of 
men and beasts whose progress spread desolation over 
the earth. But the reptiles that crawled upon the 
half-finished surface of our infant planet have left 
memorials of their passage, enduring and indelible. 
Centuries and thousands of years have rolled away, 
between the time in which these footsteps were im- 
pressed upon the sands of their native Scotland, and 
the hour when they were again laid bare and exposed 
to our curious and admiring eyes. Yet we behold 
them stamped upon the rock, distinct as the track of 
the passing animal upon the recent snow ; as if to 
show that thousands of years are but as nothing 
amidst eternity, and, as it were, in mockery of the 
fleeting perishable course of the mightiest potentates 
among mankind.” 
