444 
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
Mr. John Cunningham, of Liverpool. In a paper read before the Society on the 
3rd of December, an account was given of impressions of footsteps of several 
animals in the New Red Sandstone of the Storeton Quarries, about three miles 
S.W. of Liverpool. In examining some of the slabs of stone, extracted at the 
depth of above three feet, Mr. Cunningham observed that the under surface was 
densely covered with minute hemispherical projections, or casts in relief of circular 
pits in the immediately-subjacent layers of Clay. The origin of these marks, he 
thinks, must be ascribed to showers of rain which fell upon an argillaceous 
beach exposed by the retiring tide, and their preservation to the filling-up of the 
indentations with Sand. On the small slabs are impressions of feet of small 
reptiles, which appear to have passed over the Clay previous to the shower, since 
the foot-marks are indented with circular pits, but to a less degree; and the 
difference Mr. C. explains by the pressure of the animal having rendered these 
portions of Clay less easily acted-upon. That rain fell during the remote ages of 
the world, the author stated, no person acquainted with Geology will dispute, as 
to the destructive and transporting agency of rain water many of the sedimentary 
strata owe their origin. The vast forests, also, which grew at a period anterior 
to the New Red Sandstone, and are treasured up in our Coal-fields, could not 
have flourished without great supplies of atmospheric waters; and that the 
effects of rain may be preserved in a solid form, he proved by reference to an 
account given by Mr. Scrope of a shower which fell upon extremely fine volcanic 
ashes thrown out by Vesuvius during the eruption of 1822. The drops of rain 
formed small globules, which hardened into pellets, and accumulated in some 
places at the foot of a slope, in beds a foot or more in thickness, and were often 
so agglutinated that it required a sharp blow from a hammer to break the mass, 
March 19. 
LEEDS PHILOSOPHICAL AND LITERARY SOCIETY. 
The following are among the recent donations presented to this Society :—Two 
plaster casts of the fossil footsteps of Ckeirotherium, and some unknown animals, 
from the New Red Sandstone at Storeton-Hill Quarry, Cheshire, by Messrs. 
March and Maclea, Leeds.—A series of specimens exhibiting the brain, optic 
nerves, eyes, tentacula; cartilaginous rings from the suckers of the tentacula. 
dorsal horny lamina; beaks and respiratory apparatus of Loligo sagittata; 
specimens exhibiting the internal structure of Asterias rubens , and Solen siliqua ; 
specimens of Beroe pileus , by Mr. T. P. Teale, F.L.S., Curator.—Two fine 
specimens of native Copper-ore, from Great-Wheal-Gawton mine, Devonshire, by 
Mr. Potter, Leeds.— Poludina vivipara ; Helix caperata and H. carihusiana ; 
two fossils belonging to a species of cephalopod, from the Magnesian Limestone of 
Garforth ; and specimens of Cypris , from Colton, by Mr. S. H. Fletcher, Gar- 
