FOOTPRINTS ON THE SANDS OF TIME 43 
the adjoining State of Massachusetts, flows through a valley cut 
out of sandstone of the Triassic age. Successive layers of this 
rock are exposed all along considerable tracts of country. From 
this circumstance, and from the facility of transport afforded by 
the river, numerous quarries have, for many years, been worked 
in various parts of the valley, near the water’s edge. The many 
footprints contained in these rocks were observed much earlier 
than the date (1828) in which the Rev. Dr. Duncan first described 
the tracks at Corncockle Muir (see p. 37). They have been very 
fully described and figured by Professor Ed. Hitchcock^ and 
Dr. J, Deane.^ As far as Dr. Deane could learn, the first 
specimen was ploughed up in South Harley, in 1802, by a boy. 
This specimen is now in the Appleton Ichnological Cabinet.^ So 
strikingly did the tracks resemble those of birds, that they were 
familiarly spoken of as the tracks of poultry, or of “ Noah’s raven.” 
It was not until the year 1836 that any attempt was made to 
describe the tracks scientifically. The year previous some flagging 
stones were obtained in Montague for the streets of Greenfield, 
by a Mr. Wilson, who observed impressions upon them, which he 
regarded as tracks of “ the turkey tribe.” These were observed 
by Dr. Deane, who sent casts of them to Professor Hitchcock. 
Professor Hitchcock gave his first account of them in The 
American Journal of Science, in 1836. He propounded the idea 
1 Professor Ed. Hitchcock, Ichnology of New England. (Boston, 1858.) 
2 Dr. J. Deane, Ichnograplis from the Sandstone of Connecticut Itiver. 
(Boston, 1861.) 
^ The late Honourable Samuel Appleton, of Boston, left by his will a large 
sum of money to be appropriated by the trustees under his will to benevolent 
and scientific purposes. Those trustees accordingly appropriated ten thousand 
dollars to the erection of the Appleton Cabinet at Amherst, a museum of 
which the lower story is entirely devoted to fossil footmarks (see Beport of 
Smithsonian Institution, 1907). A still larger collection is now in the Museum 
of Yale University, but only a part is on view. 
