They are the enduring footprints in the...

They are the enduring footprints in the sands of time--evidence of spiders, reptiles and elephants that walked the earth millions of years ago.

Visitors to the Hall of Fossil Footprints at the Webb schools in Claremont see one of the largest and most diverse displays of fossil footprints in the United States, part of a unique museum created by retired teacher Raymond M. Alf and his students.

The Hall of Fossil Footprints occupies the bottom floor of the two-story Raymond M. Alf Museum on the campus shared by the private Webb School of California for boys and Virginia Webb School for girls. The museum’s top floor contains the Hall of Life, a collection of fossil specimens displayed to illustrate the history of life on earth.

At the Webb schools, which serve 400 high school students, paleontology is a required freshman course.

Don Lofgren, the museum curator/director who teaches the course, said the focus on paleontology owes everything to Alf, a teacher who started a tradition of summer expeditions

by students to archeological sites throughout the West.

Alf, who is now 86 and lives on campus, said he and his students began amassing the fossil collection in the 1930s. The museum was founded in 1968.

The display includes huge sheets of rock holding the footprints of horses, camels and elephants that lived millions of years ago. The museum also houses bones, skulls, tusks, dinosaur eggs and other ancient artifacts.

The student collection has been supplemented by purchases, including the addition last summer of a 30-foot-long skeleton of an Allosaurus fragilis, a reptile that lived in North America 140 million years ago.

The museum at 1175 W. Base Line Road is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday from September to May, but Lofgren said the best time to visit is during the open house programs held one Sunday a month, including today, from 1 to 4 p.m.

Docents are available to answer questions during open house, and there is a special crafts program for children. Admission is $1.