40 
EXTINCT MONSTERS 
rain-drops that fell while the surface was soft and impressible. 
The footprints from Storton are seen on the face of each 
successive stratum of marl, the corresponding surface of the 
overlying stone presenting, in relief, casts of the imprints and 
other markings. The hollow impressions of the feet are always 
on the upper surfaces of the slabs, and the convex casts on the 
under side of each layer or stratum, the latter fitting closely 
into the former. The double lines in between are casts of 
sun-cracks formed as the mud dried in the sun. 
These “ footprints on the sands of time ” follow one another 
in pairs — one small, the other large, each pair being in the 
same line, and some fourteen inches in advance of the other. 
Each footmark has five toes, and the first, or little toe, is bent 
outward like a thumb, and is alternately on the right and left 
side of both the large and small footprints, which, except in 
size, resemble each other. The German geologist, Dr. Kaup, 
who first described them in 1834, proposed the name of 
CheirotTierium ^ for the great unknown animal that left the foot- 
prints, in consequence of the resemblance, both of the fore and 
hind feet, to the impression of a human hand. No certain remains 
of the creatures whose tracks we are now considering have yet 
been discovered in the same strata. But in these rocks and 
others of the same geological age in England and Germany there 
have been obtained skulls, teeth, and bones of amphibians, 
known as Labyrinthodonts, of which we shall have more to say 
in Chapter VI. Some of the salamander-like amphibians of the 
Triassic period, we now know from later discoveries, attained to 
a considerable size. 
As Sir R. Owen points out, the impressions of the CJieirotherium 
resemble the footprints of a modern salamander in having the 
1 Greek — cheir^ hand ; therion, beast. 
