The same causes, which have so commonly preserved these undulations, would equally preserve any impressions that might happen to have been made on beds of sand, by the feet of animals; the only essential condition of such preservation being, that they should have become covered with a further deposite of earthy matter, before they were obliterated by any succeeding agitations of the water.
The nature of the impressions in Dumfriesshire may be
seen by reference to Pl. 26. They traverse the rock in a
direction either up or down, and not across the surfaces of
the strata, which are now inclined at an angle of 38°. On
one slab there are twenty-four continuous impressions of
feet, forming a regular track, with six distinct repetitions
of the mark of each foot, the fore-foot being differently
shaped from the hind-foot; the marks of claws are also
very distinct.[1]
found rippled markings, and abundant foot tracks of small animals on the Forest marble beds north of Bath. These were probably tracks of Crustacea.—See Phil. Mag. May, 1831, p. 376.
We find on the surface of slabs both of the calcareous grit, and Stonesfield slate, near Oxford, and on sandstones of the Wealden formation, in Sussex and Dorsetshire, perfectly preserved and petrified castings of marine worms, at the upper extremity of holes bored by them in the sand, while it was yet soft at the bottom of the water; and within the sandstones, traces of tubular holes in which the worms resided. The preservation of these tubes and castings shows the very quiet condition of the bottom, and the gentle action of the water, which brought the materials that covered them over, without disturbing them.
Cases of this kind add to the probability of the preservation of footsteps of Tortoises on the Red sandstone, and also afford proof of the alteration of intervals of repose with periods of violence, during the destructive processes by which derivative strata were formed.
- ↑ On comparing some of these impressions with the tracks which, caused to be made on soft sand, and clay, and upon unbaked pie-crust, by a living Emys and Testudo Græca, I found the correspondence with the latter sufficiently close, allowing for difference of species, to render it highly probable that the fossil footsteps were also impressed by the feet of land Tortoises.
In the bed of the Sapey and Whelpley brooks near Tenbury, circular
