Fossil Footsteps indicating the Tracks of ancient animals,
probably Tortoises, on the New Red Sandstone near Dumfries.
(From a cast presented by Rev. Dr. Duncan.)
Plate 26'. V. I. p. 201.
Fig. 1. Impressions of footsteps of several unknown animals upon a slab of New Red Sandstone found at the depth of eighteen feet in a quarry at Hessberg, near Hildburghausen in Saxony. (Sickler.)
The larger footsteps a. b. c. are referred to an animal named provisionally, Chirotherium. The fore feet of this animal were less by one half than the hind feet, and the tracks of all the feet are in the same straight line. The footsteps d. e. f. form part of another track of the same kind. Some of the large toes of the Chirotherium, and also of the smaller species, have left distinct impressions of nails: g. h. i. k. 1. m. n. o. p. q. form the track of an animal of another species, probably a Tortoise crossing the same slab in a different direction.
The irregular cylindrical concretions that intersect each other on the surface of this slab, appear to have been formed in cracks, caused by the contraction of a thin bed of green marl, interposed between two deposites of Sandstone. See note, V. I. p. 203.
