FOSSIL FOOT PRINTS.

## Connecticut River Sandstone, Delight-
ing the Hearts of Paleontologists.

For years there has been stored away in the basement of the state house a lot of thin sand stone slabs of various shapes and sizes, which give to the room in which they are stored the appearance of the office of a paving stone dealer. But the slabs which appear to be common enough are in reality valuable to the geologist and palæontologist, because a careful inspection will show through the dust and dirt accumulated on them foot-prints of various shapes and sizes made by birds and animals that are at the present time an unknown quantity in natural history. They are all of them supposed to be fossil foot prints of animals that had an existence in pre-historic ages, or certainly ages before the western continent was known to have an existence. These slabs, most of which came from the quarries at Turners' Falls, Mass., are owned by Prof. O. C. Marsh of Yale college, who is now having them cleaned and prepared for exhibition in the Peabody Museum. The slabs were most of them taken out thirteen years ago, and they have been stored here in this city for the past eleven years. They are considered to be the finest lot of fossil foot-prints extant, and when they are prepared will be placed in a fire-proof building which is to be erected for their reception. Henry Lebourveau, a gentleman from Chicopee, Mass., who has been engaged in the work of quarrying these fossil slabs for years, is now at work cleaning and setting up the stones; and on Saturday last one of them was moved to the museum.

This slab is 11 feet 5 inches long and 9 feet 9 inches wide. It is in three pieces, and is called a rain-drop slab, as it is covered with prints that look as if made by rain falling on the sand just previous to its conversion into its present state. On the slab are four foot prints which, it is claimed, were made by a three-toed bird, which stood from sixteen to twenty feet in height, and which was known to paleontologists as the *Brontozoum Gigan-tum*. There is also ready for removal a long slab, on which there were two large four-

toed prints, supposed to have been made by an *Otozoum*, and there are several slabs with these tracks on them. There is one slab which has prints made by a three-toed bird or animal which measure 20x15 inches. One of the slabs with these large foot prints was taken out 46 feet below the surface of the earth. Some of the slabs have large numbers of tracks looking as if they were made by a chicken or turkey, while others are no larger than the tracks that might be made by a robin, and one slab has over 100 tracks of the latter size. Prof. Morse owns a fine slab now at Turners Falls, which is called the Huxley slab, is 26 feet long, 6½ wide, and has on it over 400 tracks. It is said to be the finest in the world, and will soon be brought to New Haven.