If we go to the British Museum, on the north wall of room No. 1. we shall find slabs of sandstone containing footprints of animals, apparently bipeds and quadrupeds, of which we find the following notice in the catalogue of the Museum; and when this description is compared with the three drawings that follow, we make no doubt of carrying the conviction of the reader along with our own, as to the origin of these extraordinary _ichnites_,[68] as such petrified prints are termed:—“The slabs of sandstone on the north wall of this room, with the supposed tracks of an animal called Cheirotherium, are that on the left from the quarries of Hildburghausen in Saxony, and that in the centre from those of Horton Hill, near Liverpool, (the latter presented by J. Tomkinson, Esq.) On the right hand are placed slabs from the same new red sandstone formation, with equally enigmatical imprests of various dimensions, called Ornithichnites,[69] being very like footmarks of birds; they occur in the sandstone beds near Greenfield, Massachusetts, at a cataract in the Connecticut River known by the name of Turner’s Falls.” [Illustration: FOOTPRINTS OF BIPEDS (BIRDS?) PROM TURNER’S FALLS. (_Size of slab, 8 ft. by 6._) ] The lines in this drawing are merely to indicate the direction, the line of progress, of these bipeds, and the reader by following the lines will find the illustration all the more interesting. But the most remarkable footprints preserved on slabs of sandstone are those of a quadruped, whose hinder feet were much larger than his fore feet. Some of our marsupial[70] quadrupeds, such as the opossum and kangaroo, and many species of batrachian[71] reptiles, are distinguished by the same peculiarity. Below is a copy of this slab, which is in the window recess of the same room of the British Museum. [Illustration: Fossil] The animal that left these impressions on the soft sandy shore, that are now converted into hard stone, was originally named the Cheirotherium,[72] and, indeed, this name is still retained by many writers, the hand-like footprints being quite a sufficient reason for so appropriate a name; but latterly the teeth of a fossil animal, supposed to be the same as the Cheirotherium, having been examined, and disclosing a peculiarly labyrinthine character, the animal has been called Labyrinthodon.[73] Professor Owen, the great comparative anatomist of geology, has fairly established the real character of this animal. He says it is a huge frog, a gigantic batrachian, with hinder feet at least twelve inches in length, combining a crocodilian with a frog-like structure; and although the actual shape and proportions of such an animal must remain greatly an enigma, it is one of the wondrous marvels of geology to pause over these extinct huge creatures, and mark in them the exhaustless resources of creative power.