The announcement of this extraordinary phenomenon was first made by
Professor Hitchcock, in the 'American Journal of Science' (January, 1836),
and that eminent geologist has since published full descriptions of the
different species of imprints which he has detected, in his splendid work on
the geology of Massachusetts. -- Mantell's 'Medals of Creation', vol. ii.,
p. 310. In the work of Dr. Mantell above referred to, there is, in vol.
ii., p. 815, an admirable diagram of a slab from Turner's Falls, covered
with numerous foot-marks of birds, indicating the track of ten or twelve
individuals of different sizes.] -- Tr.
[footnote] **[From the examination of the fossils spoken of by geologists
under the name of 'Coprolites', it is easy to determine the nature of the
food of the animals, and some other points; and when, as happened
occasionally, the animal was killed while the process of digestion was going
on, the stomach and intestines being partly filled with half-digested food,
and exhibiting the coprolites actually 'in situ', we can make out with
certainty not only the true nature of the food, but the proportionate size
of the stomach, and the length and nature of the intestinal canal. Within
the cavity of the rib of an extinct animal, the palaeontologist thus finds
recorded, in indelible characters, some of those hieroglyphics upon which he
founds his history.
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