File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (18156237382).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo11amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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OROHIPPUS MESOHIPPUS A NEW SPECIMEN OF THE FOUR TOED HORSE KAKLIK8T KNOWN ANC'ESTOU OF THK MoDKKN IIOHSK, TIIK SMALL FOIK- TOKl) l-'dllll'ITS, DIfSCOVF.UKI) IN TIIF HAD LANDS OV WYOMING 7)'// )\'(ilfi'r (IniiKjcr THE continent of Xortli Amci-ica has produced the most complete and best preserved fossil remains of the horse; and it chances that of all institutions, the American Museum possesses the finest col- lection of fossil horses. Aside from fragmentary material, there are eight mounted skeletons in the Hall of Fossils, covering a remarkable series of connecting links from the little four-toed Eohippus of the early Eocene to the large, modernized, one-toed Equus of the Pleistocene or (ilacial PcM-iod, at which time the horse became extinct in North America. The skeleton of Eohippus at present mounted in the Museum is of the most ad\anced species of that genus and is from the ^Yind River formation of Wyoming. It was of especial interest therefore, when the expedition of the Department of Vertebrate Palneontology sent to Wyoming the past siiniiiier, discoNcred a nearly coiiiplete skeleton of one of the most primi- ti\e species of Eohippus, prexiously known to science merely by fragments of jaws containing the teeth. This was found in the extreme northwestern corner of Wyoming, in the Wasatch formation of the Big Horn Basin. After the close of the great Age of Reptiles, at a time roughly estimated at 3,0()0,()()() years ago when the region was at si-a le\'el, there occurred an uplifting of nionntain I'nnges and a general elexation of the country. The Big Horn Basin was one of sexcral formed by this raising of mountain chains, and into the basin ran the sediment washed from the rocks of the higher surrounding regions. Here in a moist, wai-ni climate and j)robably with an abundance of \egetation, many primitive mammals including the little Eohippus lived and died, and their boiu-s became buried in the slowly accumulating clays and sands, and eventually ix'trificd. .\p))r()\iinately these conditions existed until there had been deposited in this Basin a great mass of sediment 2,()()0 feet thick; the Basin was nearly filled and a drain- 85

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