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Trails, Tracks, and Surface-Markings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2016

T. Rupert Jones
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Geologizing, with some friends, on the south coast of the Isle of Wight, a few summers since (1859), we noticed some puddles of rain-water in the clay talus of the Wealden Cliffs near Brook Point, and observed that, like other such surfaces, the partially dried clay beds of the diminished pools showed rain-prints, foot-tracks, trails, and the rings of broken bubbles. Amongst these various markings are convex trail-like lines (fig. 1), which at first appeared difficult to account for; but, recollecting Mr. A. Hancock's remarks on the so-called Annelide tracks, published in the ‘Annals of Natural History,’ 3rd series, vol. ii. p. 443, plates 14–19, I looked carefully on the wetter parts of the clay, along the edges of the puddles, and soon saw little beetle-like insects boring into the clay, and apparently traversing such galleries, just beneath the surface, as the little narrow convex sinuous markings may be due to. One of these insects I enclosed alive in its clay habitat, but I could not afterwards find it, when I had the specimen of surface-marked clay at home. The cut edges of the pieces of clay show the openings of the numerous little galleries (fig. 1b). Some of them are close to the surface; some are an eighth of an inch or more below: in the latter case, probably the roof of the gallery received coatings of mud after it was raised up, retaining its convexity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Geologist , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , April 1862 , pp. 128 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1862

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References

page 130 note * This minutely-spotted surface reminds one of that portion of the woodcut in plate 7, in vol. ii. of the ‘Geologist,’ which is said to be “pitted with worm-holes in the sheltered hollows.”

page 131 note * On the under-surface of a rippled sandstone shale from Stammerham, near Horsham, I have ohserved numerous small, thread-like cylinders of sandstone, forming an irregular reticulation, which must have been due to the fine sand, when moist, having entered horizontal galleries in a clay or mud beneath: after having hardened, the sand, on the removal of the clay, has remained in the form of delicate free cylindrical casts, attached by their ends to the under-surface of the slab.

page 131 note † Notes by the late Prof. E. Forbes, on some of these figures, are appended by Mr. J. Hall, at page 37.

page 133 note * ‘Palæont. New York State,’ vol. ii. pl. 13, fig. 2: similar to those figured in Emmons's ‘Agricult. New York,’ vol. i. pl. 15, fig. 3, and pl. 16, fig. 3.

page 134 note * ‘Boston Journ. Natural History Soc.,’ vol. v. p. 282 Google Scholar. ‘Mem. Americ. Acad. Arts and Sc.,’ new series, vol. iv. p. 209 (9 plates)Google Scholar. ‘Journ. Acad. Nat. Sciene, Philadelphia,’ 2nd series, vol. ii. p. 71 Google Scholar; vol. iii. p. 173. ‘Silliman's Journal,’ vol. xlv. p. 178 Google Scholar; vol. xlvi. p. 73; xlvii, p. 292; xlviii, p. 158; xlix. p. 213; new series, vol. iii. p. 75; v. p. 40. ‘Ichnographs from the Sandstone of Connecticut River,’ 1861, Boston (46 plates.)Google Scholar

page 134 note † ‘Memoirs American Academy,’ new series, vol. iii. p. 129 Google Scholar. ‘Boston Journ. Nat. Hist. Soc.,’ vol. vi. p. 111 Google Scholar. ‘Elementary Geology,’ new edit., 1860, p. 181 Google ScholarPubMed. ‘Report on the Geology of Massachusetts,’ p. 477, etc. ‘Geology of the Globe,’ p. 98. ‘Silliman's Journal,’ vol. i. p. 105 Google Scholar; vi. pp. 1, 201; vii. p. 1; xxix. p. 307; xxxi. p. 174; xxxii, p. 174; xlvii, p. 292; 2nd series, iv. p. 46.

page 134 note ‡ Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. ii. p. 267.

page 134 note § Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. vii. p. 117; viii. p. 396; and x. p. 456, pl. 19.

page 135 note * See the memoir for some interesting information on the relationships of the great freshwater and salt lakes of the Mexican plateau; also, Tylor's, E. B. ‘Anahuac,’ 1859 Google Scholar.

page 136 note * M. Virlet d'Aoust gives much interesting information about this substance (termed Haoutl), in the culinary and antiquarian points of view. See also a notice by Guérin-Méneville, M., translated in the ‘Annals of Nat. Hist.,’ ser. 3, vol. ii. p. 313 Google Scholar.

page 136 note † See also, ‘Geologist,’ Vol. II. p. 73 Google Scholar.

page 138 note * Simple narrow concave trails, also, are not wanting in the Potsdam Sandstone of Beauharnois, Canada.

page 139 note * Journal Geol. Soc. Dublin, vol. viii. p. 89; and ‘Explanation of Sheet 137, Geol. Surv. Map Ireland,’ p. 13, figs. 3 and 4.