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.
“So reads he nature, whom the lamp of truth
Illuminates,—thy lamp, mysterious Word!
Which whoso sees, no longer wanders lost,
With intellects bemazed in endless doubt,
But runs the road of wisdom. Thou hast built
Worlds that never had been, hadst thou in strength
Been less, or less benevolent than strong.”
In Professor Ansted’s remarkable prose poem on geology, called, “The Ancient World,” we have the following picture of the new red sandstone period, which we quote for its vivid but faithful colouring:—“We may imagine a wide, low, sandy track by the sea-side; the hills and cliffs of limestone, which still rise boldly on the shores of the Avon, and in Derbyshire and Yorkshire, having then been recently elevated, and forming a fringe to the coast line. In some places, where footprints are found in successive beds and at different levels, local elevation was probably going on, and the line of coast was occasionally shifting. The sandy fiats thus laid bare, and not reached by the ordinary level of high water, were of course traversed by the ancient animals of that period; but only a few faint records of them have been handed down for our observation. Amongst these, however, we are able to enumerate turtles and tortoises, a little lizard having a bird-like beak, and probably a bird’s foot,—birds themselves, some larger than an ostrich, others as small as our smaller waders. In some parts of the world there were also large reptiles with powerful tusks, not surpassed in the amount of their departure from the ordinary structure of reptiles by any known aberrant forms of that strange and varied tribe.
“Amongst the most striking of these objects, at least on our own shores, would be the numerous and gigantic Labyrinthodons. We may imagine one of these animals, as large as a rhinoceros, pacing leisurely over the sands, leaving deep imprints of its heavy, elephantine hind foot, strangely contrasting with the diminutive step of its short fore extremities. Another, a small variety, provided like the kangaroo, not only with powerful hind legs, but also with a strong tail,[[74]] also leaves its impress on the sand, although itself, perhaps, soon fell a victim to the voracity of its larger congener. These and others of their kind, passing over the sands, and marking there the form of their expanded feet, marched onwards in their course, fulfilled their part in nature, and then disappeared for ever from the earth, leaving, in some cases, no fragment of bone, and no other indication of their shape and size than this obscure intimation of their existence.