The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1883-07-29

CONNECTICUT 0sTRrCHES AND ELEPHANis
sOME NEW "TEsTIMOsY OF TIE ROCKS.
ria ri nrd foam \ Ttmea Iuiv l3th.I

CONNECTICUT distributes AND bi'bf
s0xE NEW "TEsIIM0SY OF THE ROCKS
Hartford tConn.) Times July l3th.I
A vessel, Just arrived Mt the dock 1901
OF Potter's street with load OF heavy
stone blocks taken from the Portland Tree
stone quarry, has among the cargo some re,
markable specimens OF the tracks OF fossil
beasts and birds that once lived in tnis
valley. These slabs were taken from
stratum about SIX or seven inches thick,
living at depth OF about so feet from the
top OF the quarry. The position OF the
stone was about 30 feet below the present
hank OF the Connecticut, and perhaps 800
feet east OF the river. Above this stratum
there Law, for ages, formation OF about 80
feet of rock and rocky earth, half OF that
great thickness being Of clear frecstone,
the kind OF which the houses on so many
New York streets are built. In the case OF
these houses, as OF so many in this city, the
material was taken from this same quarry.
The slabs in this cargo, which Is consigned
70 A. Budde az Co., are OF various sizes.
hut mostly heayy-hewn sills, perhaps six
or eight feet long and proportlonateiy
thick. Among them are broader, unhewn
slabs. and on these are found the remarka-
BILE tracks.
The slabs appear to have been, in
each instance, i'm the upper one
of two strata containing these tracks
one, the lower stratum mot seen IN
this collection), has the depression caused
by the steps OF the antediluvian creatures.
birds, and beasts who walked on that shore
when the sea reached the region where
these quarries now are; the other, the up
per one. fitted into these tracks, and per-
feet east. hardened now into freestone, was
formed OF those tracts, in projection or re-
lief. The line Of cleavage enables the free
| stone to lie easily split off in strata accll-
rately corresponding to these distinct stages
| OF the formation. anu shows the tracks In
| high relief.
The philosophy OF this wonderful fact is
simple enough. In that ancient time
whether 10000 or 100000 years ago. Sc
ologists cannot certainly say-thcSe free
stone rocks were merely an antediluyian
sea-beach. (rhe sea is now thirty miles or
more south OF the quarries.) IL was very
| smooth, soft. Welding shore OF sandy mud.
overlooked by every returning tide, and
visited by various creatures OF the ancient
world, now extinct, but whose gigantic
bones, i'm some instances, are still found,
not wholly destroyed, under beds OF peat
| and i'm Dogs. Their tracks in this soft shore
Of mud, and under the sun OF what was
once a torrid climate here, would be filled
| by the returning tides-for the primal seas
were full OF sedimentary matter-and
baked down hard; thus new layer would
be formed, to be sOldilied, in the course OF
ages, into what is now known rs frceStone.
| How these sandstone formations could be
built up to considerable heights above the
shore geology does not say-unlesS we ac-
| cept the theory that a subsequent recession
Of the earth in this region permitted the
additions we see. 1t is known that these
sinkings and risings have indeed occurred,
and are slowly occurring to-day, in various
parts Of the world. However it came about,
there is the present fact; gusts OF huge an
| tediluviaG tracks that are found TO fit ac-
curateIy into the underlying stone from
which the slabs were split of.
The enormous skeletons, still partly pre-
served. under many swamps in New York,
| New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and other States,
probably represent big beast of the clr-
plant species who once roamed the Con-
necticut Valley also. Here are his tracks
| i'm relief. one, which measures IL inches
| by If, and is larger than the track OF any
living elephant, shows the impression OF
the toes very distinctly and Enthusiastically,
and also the reverse representation OF the
impressions OF the inner muscular pro-
jcctions OF the bottom OF the huge foot.
OF these tracks there are three. on Il single
slab, five TO six feet long aud perhaps
yard or more wide and seven inches thick.
There is no mistaking these tracks, They
are evidently the track OF some hugh beast,
and one OF the elephant kind, too, and not
any mere accidental formation by other
causes. On one slab i'm tins city, near this
creatures tracks, is = stony heap of his
ordure. known in geology rs cOprOiieS.
one slab bears the unmistakable tracks
Of some biz tliree-toed bird, seemingly Of
the ostrich family. These tracks are re-
markabe for being almost perfectly in
| straight line-as il the creature had but one
lee. No Indian could step straighter. The
stride is about foot and half. However
it may be with some other supposed fossil
bird-tracks " in the Connccticut-N Valley
sandstoncS, these certainly are no tracks OF
the Iabyrinthodon, or of any other ancient
frog; they are bird-tracks.
one slab bears the impression, in relief,
OF the longitudinal half OF tree-trunk,
seemingly, according To most Observers, a
lNholN tl'N. iol It's SlldEEi bsil n huu W
very texture are wonderfully preserved.
The slab was ten feet long, and bore the
east OF the tree all the way; but this Specl-
men il but three feet long, that part OF it
having been cut off at the quarry. 1t was
evidently large, full-grown tree-possi-
bly, iloatcd down the river from some place
over which it east its shade IN ages much
further preceding the supposed birth Of
Adam than that is supposed to precede
modern times.