IN THE MISTY PAST.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19867, 13 August 1926, Page 12

IN THE MISTY PAST.

TWENTY-FIVE MILLION YEARS. DISCOVERY OF FOOTPRINTS. ANIMAL WITH EIGHT FEET, f Slabs of stone containing footprints at animals believed to be 25 million years old have arrived at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, from Grand Canyon, Arizona. Tracks have been discovered belonging to 14 distinct kinds of animals. Perhaps the most interesting is a track indicating an eight-footed creature, the eight feet making a diamond formation. Tracks have been found on three different levels. Millions of years are represented between the levels or strata, the lowest of which is 1800 ft under the rim of the canyon and 400 ft below any fossil footprints hitherto found. This layer is called the ‘‘Supia sandstone.” Animals that crawled across it when it was soft sand on the surface disappeared, and their trades were covered by a sediment through the ages,' till the octopod tracks were 400 ft below the surface of the earth. Across this new surface—-a muddy one other animals crawled —some leaving deep impressions close together, indicating heavy, squat-legged creatures; others leav in- the superficial unbroken trail of the worm. Sedimentation continued through more millions of years until there was a new surface of 500 ft above the level of the squat-legged and vermiform tracings. tsand was again being deposited. There, in the now hardened sand, a third group of animals left their footprints. After their period was ended, tho earth was again piled up, 900 ft more, to the present top of the canyon. In later the Colorado River, carving out the Grand Canyon, cut through the successive layers, and fcheee are now being exposed and analysed. Earlier discoveries of footprints on rocks in the Grand Canyon were reported in December, 1924. The Grand Canyon of Arizona is one of the greatest wondera of nature in the American continent. The River Colorado, which rises in Utah, and finds its way after a course of 1100 miles to the Gulf of California, in Mexico, has during the millions of years cut itself a deep chasm on the highlands of Arizona* Tliis canyon is more than 250 miles long, and in some places the fiver flows more than 5000 ft (nearly a mile) below the surface of the plateau.