Sir William Jardine

SIR WILLIAM JARDINE (1800-1874)
The Ichnology of Annandale or illustrations of footmarks impressed on the New Red Sandstone of Corncockle Muir. Edinburgh: W.H. Lizars, [1850-]1853. Large 2° (571 x 437mm). Pp. [2, lithographic title printed in bistre, verso blank], [2, 'Ichnology of Annandale' with chromolithographic vignette view of Corncockle Muir Quarry', verso blank], 3-17 [1, blank], with chromolithographic vignette 'Rain Drops' on p.6, wood-engraved section on p.16. 12 chromolithographic plates of fossil footprints, all but 2 double-page, double-page chromolithographic 'View and Section across the valley of the Annan from east to west'. (Occasional very light scattered spotting.) Modern black half cloth over dark-blue sand-grain cloth-covered boards. Provenance: AUTHORIAL PRESENTATION INSCRIPTION on flyleaf, to:) -- Charles Ratcliff -- The Nature Conservancy, Edinburgh (stamp on flyleaf, with deaccession stamp dated 1989).
EXCEPTIONALLY RARE, SPECTACULAR LIFESIZE ILLUSTRATIONS OF FOSSIL REPTILE FOOTPRINTS. Jardine's interest in fossil footprints probably started in 1837, but it was not until ten years later that he opened up the Corncockle Quarry on his estate. This was worked to a depth of 200 feet, and revealed spectacular impressions. As one of the editors of Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Jardine started to publish his friend's, Robert Harkness, account of some of the footprints in 1850, before becoming confident of his own abilities as a geologist to add his own papers on the subject. In the present work, Jardine established three genera and five species, all of which remain valid today. Harkness and Jardine believed the fossil footprints were made by littoral reptiles in wet, muddy sand, whereas today we now know the New Red Sandstones of the Permian were formed under extremely harsh desert conditions and represent the only evidence of these animals' existence. The work is very rare indeed