From the North British Review. MARVELS OF FOSSIL FOOTPRINTS.* "Ir happened one day about noon,* wrote the author of the life and adventures of that immortal hero, Robinson Crusoe, "going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. I stood as one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition. How it came thither I knew not, nor could in the least imagine." The whole passage in which the imaginary discovery is recorded, affords a fine illustration of that graphic power of description for which the work stands unrivaled. Longfellow's "Footprints on the sands of Time" is tame, when set alongside of it. The "listening and look ing" the "going up the shore and down the shore" the feeling that it "all might be a fancy" the "no room for that, for there was exactly the very print of a foot, toes, heel, and every part"-are all inimitably true to nature, and to the "strange, unaccountable whimsies which come into thoughts by the way." The first time we read the account of the ornithichnites of the Connecticut valley, the feelings as cribed to the hero in the fiction were forcibly recalled to memory, though nearly thirty years had passed since we had read the footprint scene. But the creations of fiction are surpassed by the facts of science; and the student of natural science is often led to walk calmly amidst wonders of which even an imagination like that of Dante or of Milton would not have dared to dream. In 1802, an Amer. ican boy turned up with his plow, at SouthHadley, in the valley of the Connecticut river, a slab of sandstone, well marked by what seemed to be the footmarks of birds. The discovery took a strong hold of the imagination of the people. Had the wa *Ichnology of New England. A Report on the Sandstone of the Connecticut Valley, especially its Fossil Footmarks, made to the Government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. BY EDWARD HITCHCOCK, Professor in Amherst College. Boston: William White, Printer to the State. 1858. ters of the flood rolled wildly over these sandstone slopes? Was the top soil only the result of very recent changes? Might not the surface of the sandstones, at the time of the deluge, have been so soft as to receive easily the marks of a bird's foot, as we see the sand on our shores marked, after the tide has been at the highest, with the footmarks of the seabirds which have followed the retiring waters? May not the footprints be those of the birds which left the ark, after the dark waves had rolled into the ocean, or lost themselves in the valleys down which the rivers wander? And if so, may not these impressions be actually the traces with which "Noah's raven" has written the fact of his historical standing on the great earth itself? The popular questionings caught at the last suggestion, and the footprints on the Connecticut sandstones were set down as those of Noah's raven! The discovery remained much longer in the regions of popular ignorance and superstition than could have been expected at the time. A race of scientific men had begun to appear in Britain and in America, who were not likely to allow such phenomena to continue without being closely looked into. They afforded tempting material for theorizing on the order of time in which different forms of life were introduced on the globe, and for assorting the discoveries so as to harmonize with existing views regarding the deluge, etc. Yet twenty-six years passed without much attention having been directed to them. In 1828, the late Dr. Duncan, of Ruthwell, a man who stood far ahead of the class to which he belonged in scientific acquirements and in general knowledge, while equal to the most earnest of that class in the work of his profession, once more drew the notice of geologists to these fossil tracks, in connection with the sandstones of Corncocklemuir. Dr. Duncan described the Corncockle tracks with great ability and clearness to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1828. The discovery was now set in a light in Britain which was sure very soon to attract attention. Dr. Buckland, then in the prime of those great talents of which he was spared to make such good use in the cause of science and in the service of Christ, gave a prominence to the Dumfriesshire discoveries, which they could not have so well got in any other way, by devoting some space to them in his Bridgewater Treatise. Quoting from Dr. Duncan, in regard to the position of the tracks, Buckland suggested an element of great interest, and one fitted to awaken a multitude of such feelings as those so graphically described by Defoe, when his hero lighted on the footprint in the desert island. The fact of the existence of animals, every trace of whose remains have perished, was not only established, but the duration of their existence on the globe was clearly hinted at. "Dr. Duncan states," says Buckland, "that the strata which bear these impressions lie on each other, like volumes on the shelf of a library when all inclining to one side; that the quarry has been worked to the depth of forty-five feet from the top of the rock; throughout the whole of this depth similar impressions have been found, not on a single stratum only, but on many successive strata; that is, after removing a large slab which contained footprints, they found perhaps the very next stratum, at the distance of a few feet, or it might be less than an inch, exhibiting a similar phenomenon. Hence it follows that the process by which the impressions were made on the sand, and subsequently buried, was repeated at successive intervals."* ed its rise, and have named those who, because of the time at which they appear in the field, deserve to be remembered as having first seen the value of the discovery in connection, with some of the most important cosmical and palæontological questions. After 1836, many other observers appeared, whose labors have both laid the foundation of, and supplied the materials for, that magnificent structure which our greatest living palæontologist has built up in his recent memoir.* "The existence of birds," says Owen, "at the triassic period in geology, or at the time of the formation of sandstones, which are certainly intermediate between the lias and the coal, is indicated by abundant evidences of footprints impressed upon those sandstones which extend through a great part of the valley of the Connecticut river, in Connecticut and Massachusetts, North-America. "The footprints of birds are peculiar, and more readily distinguishable than those of most other animals. Birds tread on the toes only; these are articulated to a single metatarsal bone, at right angles equally to it; and they diverge more from each other, and are less connected with each other, than in other animals, except as regards the web-footed order of birds. more than three toes are directed forward:† the Not nermost to the uttermost toe. When the back fourth, when it exists, is directed backward, is shorter, usually rises higher from the metatarsal, and takes less share in sustaining the superincumbent weight. No two toes of the same foot in any bird have the same number of joints. There is a constant numerical progression in the number of phalanges (toe-joints) from the intoe exists, it is the innermost of the four toes, and it has two phalanges, the next has three, the third or middle of the front toes has four, and the outermost has five phalanges. When the back toe is wanting, as in some waders, and Meanwhile another able and accurate most wingless birds, the toes have three, four, observer had entered the field. Sir Wil-number of toes is reduced to two, as in the and five phalanges respectively. When the liam Jardine brought his habits of dis- ostrich, their phalanges are respectively four crimination as an ornithologist to bear and five in number; thus showing those toes upon the fossil tracks of Dumfriesshire; to answer to the two outermost toes in tridactyle and he has embodied his observations in a and tetradactyle birds. monograph, to which we would call the "The same numerical progression characterattention of our readers. It is full of in-izes the two phalanges in most lizards, from the terest, and marked by much ability. As our desire is to give our readers an outline of Professor Hitchcock's labors in ichnology, we can not follow the history of this branch of science in Britain, except in a very general way. We have indicat * See Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, edited by his Son. Two vols. London: Routledge, 1858. In No. 59 of this Journal, we called atten tion to the merits of this edition. innermost to the fourth; but a fifth toe exists in them, which has one phalange less than the fourth toe. It is the fifth toe which is wanting in every bird. In some GALLINACEA, one or two (Pavo bicalcaratus) spurs are superadded to the metatarsus; but this peculiar weapon is not the stunted homoloque of a toe. Dr. Deane, and Mr. Marsh of Greenfield, United States, first noticed, in 1835, impressions resembling the *Palæontology, by Professor Owen. Encyclopædia Britannica. New edition. Save in the Swift. feet of birds, in the sandstone rocks near that town. Dr. Hitchcock, President of Amherst College, United States, whose attention was called to these impressions, first made public the fact, and submitted to a scientific ordeal his interpretations of those impressions as having been produced by the feet of living birds; and he gave them the name of Ornithichnites. "It was a startling announcement, and a conclusion that must have had strong evidence to support it, since one of the kinds of the tracks had been made by a pair of feet, each leaving a print twenty inches in length. Under this term Ornithichnites giganteus, however, Dr. Hitchcock did not shrink from announcing to the geological world the fact of the existence, during the period of the deposition of the red sandstones of the valley of the Connecticut, of a bird which must have been at least four times larger than the ostrich. The impressions succeeded each other at regular intervals; they were of two kinds, but differing only as a right and left foot, and alternating with each other, the left foot a little to the left, and the right foot a little to the right, of the mid-line between the series of tracks. Each footprint exhibits three toes, diverging as they extend forwards. The distance between the tips of the inside and outside toes of the same foot was twelve inches. Each toe was terminated by a short strong claw projecting from the mid-toe, a little on the inner side of its axis, from the other two toes, a little on the outer side of theirs. The end of the metatarsal bone, to which those toes were articulated, rested on a two-lobed cushion, which sloped upwards behind. The inner toe showed distinctly two phalangeal divisions, the middle toe three, the outer toe four. And since, in living birds, the penultimate and ungual phalanges usually leave only a single impression, the inference was just, that the toes of this large foot had been characterized by the same progressively-increasing number of phalanges, from the inner to the outer one, as in birds. And, as in birds also, the toe with the greatest number of joints was not the longest; it measured, for example, twelve and a half inches; the middle toe from the same base-line measured sixteen inches; the outer toe twelve inches. Some of the impressions of this huge trydactylous footstep were so well preserved, as to demonstate the papillose and striated character of the integument covering the cushions on the under side of the foot. Such a structure is very similar to that in the ostrich. The average extent of stride, as shown by the distance between the impressions, was between three and four feet; the same limb was therefore carried out each step from six to seven feet for ward in the ordinary rate of progression. some localities we find parallel rows of tracks a few feet distance from one another.'" The red sandstone of the Connecticut The Valley, thus fruitful in the fossil tracks of birds, supplies many traces of other groups of the animal kingdom. Vertebrata are represented by seven groups, forty-four genera, and ninety-three species. The Invertebrata lay claim to two great groups, sixteen genera, and twenty-nine species; making, in all, one hundred and twenty-two species of Lithichnozoa, whose tracks on these primeval sandstones are all that remain to tell that, in other ages and under climatal conditions wholly different from present ones, they had passed away life's brief span. The time which must have elapsed after they departed from the scene of being, yet before the appearance of man on the earth, must have been immense. The period which has elapsed since Adam conversed with his Maker, amidst the groves of Eden, is as yesterday, compared with the time at which the sun saw the last living things which have left their What a world of life had peopled that footprints on the Connecticut sandstones. valley, when man's only place was in the depths of that Eternal Mind which, before the time when the foundations of the earth were laid, anticipated the epoch of Adam, and even from everlasting rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth!* Taking a closer glance at the classification of the Connecticut Lithichnozoa, we find the line of life run from the Marsupialoid animals through pachydactylous, or thick-toed Birds, leptodactylous, or narrow-toed birds, on to Annelidans; passing thus in its range the curious group of Ornithoid Lizards and Batrachians, lying between the true Licerta and Batrachia, which are largely represented, the Chelonia, Pisces, Crustacea, and Insecta. The organic remains of the Connecticut sandstone are so numerous, that it requires not a strong imagination to picture the scene down on which the sun shone, and the rains descended, and over which the winds swept at the time, between which and our day lie great ages of unimagined duration. Swimming the estu "These footprints, although the largest that have been observed on the Connecticut sandstones, are the most numerous. The gigantic brontozoum, as Professor Hitchcock proposes to term the species, must have been,' he writes, ary waters, countless Lepidoides tempted 'the giant rulers of the valley. Their gregarious character appears from the fact, that at * Proverbs 8. more formidable fishers than man to venture from the shore in search of them; for in neighboring marshes the huge Grallatores, whose footprints have been presented to us, found a home, and turtles, lizards, and Batrachian reptiles swarmed around. The vegetation was in keeping with the forms of animal life. Esquisetacæa shot their jointed stems up out of the marshes, Cycadites hung their pinnated fronds out in shining beauty in the sunlight; the intertwining Club Mosses yielded the green covering, up out of which the arborescent forms of vegetation sprung; while the drooping characteristic fern, Clathropteris rectiusculus, with here and there a half-decayed leaf, revealing its beautiful reticulations, stood out in dark green patches on the edges of a life-full pool.* True, there was no eye of man to be satisfisd with their beauty; but they stood forth in glory under the eye of the great Creator, who rejoices in all his works! "Is it not truly wonderful," says Hugh Miller, "that in this late age of the world, in which the invention of the poets seems to content itself with humbler and lowlier flights than of old, we should thus find the facts of Geology fully rivaling, in the strange and the outré, the wildest fancies of the Romancers who flourished in the Middle Ages? I have already referred to flying dragons-real existences of the Oolitic period, that were quite as extraordinary of type, if not altogether so huge of bulk, as those with which the Seven Champions of Christendom used to do battle; and here are we introduced to birds of the Liassic Ages that were scarce less gigantic than the rock of Sinbad the Sailor. They are fraught with strange meanings, those footprints of the Connecticut. They tell of a time far removed into the by-past eternity, when great birds frequented by myriads the shores of a nameless lake, to wade into its shallows in quest of mail-covered fishes of the ancient type, or long extinct mollusks; while reptiles equally gigantic, and of still stranger proportions, haunted the neighboring swamps and savannahs; and when the same sun that shone on the tall moving forms beside the waters, and threw their long shadows across the red sands, lighted up the glades of deep forests, Geology of Pennsylvania. By Professor H. D. Rogers. Vol. II. Part II. Page 694. all of whose fantastic productions-tree, bush, and herb-have, even in their very species, long since passed away." Much light has been let in upon the characteristic strata, in which the organic remains, suggestive of all this, lie embedded. In the work before us, Professor Hitchcock gives us information of great value. Sir Charles Lyell has also turned his attention to it, while Professor Rogers has brought to its examination a skill in judging of mineral peculiarities, talents as a field geologist, and varied attainments in paleontology, which are not often found united in one man. His great work on the Geology of Pennsylvania affords abundant evidence of all this-a work to which we would direct our readers, as containing not only a most elaborate examination of the Geology of Pennsylvania, but also as full of information on American geology generally. Written, as this magnificent work is, from the point of view both of pure science and of industrial pursuits, it teems with facts of great interest to the man of science, and to the engineer also, in what might be called the economical bearings of paleontology. Breadth of view, patient research, and great acuteness, are seen on every page; while its illustrations of characteristic scenery, and of surface geology, its numerous sections, and its figures of organic remains, greatly increase its value and attractiveness. We are led to notice it thus, from the help it has afforded us in understanding the position of the Connecticut sandstones, their relation to other American strata, and because, more than any other work we are acquainted with, it contains abundant material for the assistance of any student who may have a taste for one of the most interesting forms of geological studythat, namely, which seeks to realize a system of probable synchronism between the strata of countries locally far removed from each other. The American geologists have always an eye to the economical as well as the purely scientific bearings of their pursuits. I have spoken of this subject," says Professor Hitchcock in the Ichnology, "as if it had no bearings of consequence upon the economical interests of the state. But in this case there is an unexpected application of this sort, which certainly deserves attention. In describing the footmarks, it has been an important point to determine precisely where the rock in which they occur belongs, in the series of geological formations. The Connecticut river sandstone has proved one of the most difficult of rocks to identify with those whose position is settled in Europe and elsewhere. It was early regarded as old as the old red sandstone, or at least the coal formation. Subsequently a part of it at least was proved to be as new as the trias, or new red sandstone. But the more recent researches and discoveries of John and W. C. Redfield, of Professor W. B. Rogers, and Edward Hitchcock, Jr., have produced the conviction, that at least the higher beds of this formation those containing the footmarks, the fishes, and the ferns-are as new as the lower part of the jurassic or oolite series -say the lias. The lower beds may be older; and there seems to be thickness enough to embrace several rocks below So long as the rock was regarded as the old red or the new red sandstone, the idea of finding workable coal in it was given up. But if it be liassic, as many now regard a part of it, it is identified with the rock in Eastern Viginia, containing beds of bituminous coal of great value; and we may very reasonably resume our researches after this valuable substance in the Connecticut Valley with some hope of success." the lias. This reference to the economical bearings is, however, by the way. It is time we were looking more closely at the merits of the work itself. It would be difficult to determine the value of the contribution to the literature of science many trials from failing health, and that its author regards it as his last important effort in a department which he has made peculiarly his own, and with which his name will ever be associated. It bears not the slightest trace of failing strength, but comes from its author in his old age, as clear in its reasoning, as powerful in its riches of thought, and as vigorous in style, as it could have done had it been sent forth from his hands in the mid-time of his days. It lies in gracefulness and strength on the monument which he has, in his writings, raised for himself; and we even hope that it may not yet be the last stone he is to add to that building. As it is, the monument is already, like that of the Latin poet, "more lasting than brass." The Report, as the title-page bears, was made to "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts." It is published at the expense of the State, and affords another to the many previously existing illustrations of the zeal of American statesmen in the cause of science, and of their princely liberality in promoting it. John Bull would get no harm, and he would bestow a great boon on science, were he to take a leaf out of brother Jonathan's book, and be as ready as several of these American "Commonwealths" are, in fostering and directing scientific enterprise, and in coming forward just at the right time with material assistance. It is worth while to copy from the State Resolves of 1857 and 1858 the following emphatic deliverances: "Resolved, That Professor Hitchcock's Geolo which Prof. Hitchcock has made in pre-gical Report on the Sandstone of Connecticut paring and publishing the Ichnology. The author is mainly known in Britain by his physico-theological works. His popular fame rests chiefly on them; but much of their influence, all of it, indeed, of a solid and lasting kind, is the result of the confidence which men of science repose in his scientific attainments. The testimony of Professor Owen, already quoted, is enough to show this. That the confidence is well deserved, a glance at the list of Papers on Ichnology alone, named along with the writings of others on the same subject at the beginning of this volume, sufficiently bears witness. In addition to these, we have such works as that on Surface Geology, and the one now under review. We have reason to know that this volume has been prepared amidst Valley with drawings and maps connected |