III THE NEW SCIENCE OF PALEONTOLOGY A History of Science | ||
THE FOSSIL-BEDS OF AMERICA
Coincidently with the discovery of these highly suggestive pages of the geologic story, other still more instructive chapters were being brought to light in America. It was found that in the Rocky Mountain region, in strata found in ancient lake beds, records of the tertiary period, or age of mammals, had been made and preserved with fulness not approached in any other re-
The profusion of vertebrate remains thus brought to light quite beggars all previous exhibits in point of mere numbers. Professor Marsh, for example, who was first in the field, found three hundred new tertiary species between the years 1870 and 1876. Meanwhile, in cretaceous strata, he unearthed remains of about two hundred birds with teeth, six hundred pterodactyls, or flying dragons, some with a spread of wings of twenty-five feet, and one thousand five hundred mosasaurs of the sea-serpent type, some of them sixty feet or more in length. In a single bed of Jurassic rock, not larger than a good-sized lecture-room, he found the remains of one hundred and sixty individuals of mammals, representing twenty species and nine genera; while beds of the same age have yielded three hundred reptiles, varying from the size of a rabbit to sixty or eighty feet in length.
But the chief interest of these fossils from the West is not their number but their nature; for among them are numerous illustrations of just such intermediate types of organisms as must have existed in the past if the succession of life on the globe has been an unbroken lineal succession. Here are reptiles with bat-like wings, and others with bird-like pelves and legs adapted for bipedal locomotion. Here are birds with teeth, and other reptilian characters. In short, what with reptilian birds and birdlike reptiles, the gap between modern reptiles and birds is quite bridged over. In a
Marsh Describes the Fossil Horse
“It is a well-known fact,” says Professor Marsh, “that the Spanish discoverers of America discovered no horses on this continent, and that the modern horse (Equus caballus, Linn.) was subsequently introduced from the Old World. It is, however, not so generally known that these animals had formerly been abundant here, and that long before, in tertiary time, near relatives of the horse, and probably his ancestors, existed in the far West in countless numbers and in a marvellous variety of forms. The remains of equine mammals, now known from the tertiary and quaternary deposits of this country, already represent more than double the number of genera and species hitherto found in the strata of the eastern hemisphere, and hence afford most important aid in tracing out the genealogy of the horses still existing.
“The animals of this group which lived in America
THE EVOLUTION OF A HORSE'S FOOT AND OF A HORSE'S....
[Description: Image of THE EVOLUTION OF A HORSE'S FOOT AND OF A HORSE'S....]“The larger number of equine mammals now known from the tertiary deposits of this country, and their regular distributions through the subdivisions of this formation, afford a good opportunity to ascertain the probable descent of the modern horse. The American representative of the latter is the extinct Equus fraternus (Leidy), a species almost, if not wholly, identical with the Old World Equus caballus (Linnæus), to which our recent horse belongs. Huxley has traced successfully the later genealogy of the horse through European extinct forms, but the line in America was probably a more direct one, and the record is more complete. Taking, then, as the extreme of a series, Orohippus agilis (Marsh), from the eocene, and Equus fraternus (Leidy), from the quaternary, intermediate forms may be intercalated with considerable certainty from thirty or more well-marked species that lived in the intervening periods. The natural line of descent would seem to be through the following genera: Orohippus, of the eocene; Miohippus and Anchitherium, of the miocene; Anchippus, Hipparion, Protohippus, Phohippus, of the pliocene; and Equus, quaternary and recent.
The most marked changes undergone by the suc-
“The increase of speed was equally well marked, and was a direct result of the gradual formation of the limbs. The latter were slowly concentrated by the reduction of their lateral elements and enlargement of the axial bone, until the force exerted by each limb came to act directly through its axis in the line of motion. This concentration is well seen e.g., in the fore-limb. There was, first, a change in the scapula and humerus, especially in the latter, which facilitated motion in one line only; second, an expansion of the radius and reduction of the ulna, until the former alone remained entire and effective; third, a shortening of all the carpal bones and enlargement of the median ones, insuring a firmer wrist; fourth, an increase of size of the third digit, at the expense of those of each side, until the former alone supported the limb.
“Such is, in brief, a general outline of the more marked changes that seemed to have produced in America the highly specialized modern Equus from his diminutive four-toed predecessor, the eocene Orohippus. The line of descent appears to have been direct, and the remains now known supply every important
III THE NEW SCIENCE OF PALEONTOLOGY A History of Science | ||