168 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OP 



On the 17tb, in company with Dr. J. Van A. Carter and Dr. 

 Joseph K. Corson, U.S.A., I made a trip to the valley of Dry 

 Creek, forty miles from Fort Bridger. Here we encamped and 

 spent three days in exploring the neighboring bnttes for fossils. 

 In ascending the buttes bounding the valley I was astonished at 

 the appearance of the country extending from the horizon in the 

 north to the snow3^-peaked Uintas on the south. An utter desert, 

 a vast succession of treeless plains and bnttes, with scarcely any 

 vegetation and no signs of animal life. Eve lathing parched, 

 abundance of river courses without water, the stones at my feet 

 baked in the soil. An overwhelming silence reigned undisturbed 

 even by the hum of an insect. Truly, I said, this is the wreck of 

 another world which was once luxuriant with vegetation and 

 teemed with animals. 



We were successful in finding many interesting fossils. The 

 most abundant vertebrate remains are those of turtles, the shells 

 of which are frequently met with in little heaps of fragments into 

 which they have been reduced after exposure from the wearing of 

 the buttes. Of mammalian remains the most abundant are those 

 of the tapir-like animal I named Paleeosyops jjaludosus. We also 

 found a number of more characteristic specimens than I had before 

 seen of the larger species of Paleeosyops majo?\ Dr. Corson further 

 discovered the remains of a small species which may be named 

 Paleeosyops humilis. An upper molar tooth of this animal mea- 

 sures three- fourths of an inch in diameter. We have likewise 

 found some additional remains of Hyrachyus agrarius, and better 

 specimens than I before had of the larger Hyrachyus eximius. A 

 well-preserved last lower molar of this species measures an inch 

 fore and aft. 



We were fortunate in obtaining the remains of two of the largest 

 and most extraordinary mammals } T et discovered in the Bridger 

 tertiary deposits. One of these was a tapiroid animal exceeding 

 in bulk of body and limb the living Rhinoceroses, though the head 

 appears to have been proportionally small. Dr. Carter discovered 

 many fragments of a skeleton of the animal, including a whole 

 humerus, portions of jaws, and a much crushed and distorted 

 cranium. 



The upper molar teeth have the crown composed of a pair of 

 transverse lobes, with sloping sides and acute summits, separated 

 externally and united internally in a V-like manner. A thick 

 basal ridge bounds the crown in front and behind. A last upper 

 molar measures an inch and a half in the median line fore and aft. 

 The molars in advance are smaller. 



The lower molars have a trilobed crown. The anterior lobe, 

 larger than the others, extends across the crown and rises in a 

 prominent peak internally. The acute summit is worn away 

 posteriorly. The middle lobe extends about two-thirds across 

 the crown from the outer side, and is less prominent than the 



