The opening of Postscript
Tracks of a Lower Silurian reptile in Canada--Chelonian footprints in Old Red Sandstone, Morayshire--Skeleton of a reptile in the same formation in Scotland--Eggs of Batrachians (?) in a lower division of the "Old Red," or Devonian--Footprints of Lower Carboniferous reptiles in the United States--Fossil rain-marks of the Carboniferous period in Nova Scotia--Triassic Mammifer from the Keuper of Stuttgart--Cretaceous Gasteropoda--Dicotyledonous leaves in Lower Cretaceous strata--Bearing of the recent discoveries above-mentioned on the theory of the progressive development of animal life.
Tracks of a Lower Silurian reptile in Canada.--In the year 1847, Mr. Robert Abraham announced in the Montreal Gazette, of which he was editor, that the track of a freshwater tortoise had been observed on the surface of a stratum of sandstone in a quarry opened on the banks of the St. Lawrence at Beauharnais in Upper Canada. The inhabitants of the parish being perfectly familiar with the track of the amphibious mud-turtles or terrapins of their country, assured Mr. Abraham that the fossil impressions closely resembled those left by the recent species on sand or mud. Having satisfied himself of the truth of their report, he was struck with the novelty and geological interest of the phenomenon.