568 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



American Museum, the first in charge of Messrs. Matthew and 

 Granger into southwestern Wyoming, making special search for addi- 

 tional remains of the great horned Uintatherium. They were rewarded 

 by the discovery of two skeletons and a fine lower jaw. One of these 

 skeletons was in such a position that it appeared to have been mired in 

 what was at the time a soft, tenacious clay, but is now an olive shale. 

 They also discovered two fine skulls of the primitive running rhi- 

 noceros, Tlyracliyus, the skull and part of the skeleton of Hyopsodus, 

 which has long figured as a lemur, but is now thought to be an insecti- 

 vore ; three skulls of the primitive tapir, Isectolophus; six skulls and por- 

 tions of the skeleton of Palceosyops, and two skulls of carnivores. In spite 

 of diligent search no additional remains were secured of the fossil horse 

 of the Bridger. The most important general feature of this work, how- 

 ever, is the fact that the Bridger formation can now be definitely 

 divided up into a series of great geological steps, A, B, C, D, each char- 

 acterized by a distinct assemblage of animals or by distinct and dif- 

 ferent stages of evolution. The second American Museum party, 

 under Mr. Brown, well known for his successful explorations in Pata- 

 gonia and Montana, went out with the special object of securing a 

 complete skeleton of some of the great plesiosaurs of the cretaceous. 

 Continuing his work of 1902 and 1903, Mr. Brown made special search 

 in the Pierre shales, securing near Edgemont, South Dakota, the greater 

 part of the skeleton of a Plesiosaur, including skull, jaws, complete 

 neck about fifteen feet long, one complete paddle, part of the pectoral 

 girdle and some dorsal vertebra?. In the same locality another 

 plesiosaur and several long snouted marine crocodiles were found. 



In the museums which have been enriched by last season's explora- 

 tions the work of preparation for exhibition and scientific description 

 is progressing. It is, unfortunately, an extremely slow and difficult 

 matter to prepare a fossil, however carefully collected, for exhibition. 

 It takes two years or more to work out the collections of a single 

 season; the result is that most of our museums are collecting materials 

 more rapidly than they can be worked up ; hundreds, and in some cases 

 thousands, of boxes are stored away. With larger endowments or with 

 special gifts these treasures could be more rapidly brought to light. 



The popular interest in the ancient history of North America as 

 shown in the rise and fall of the successive dynasties of animal life is 

 rapidly increasing; the daily journals give a large amount of space to 

 fresh discoveries — usually with a considerable amount of exaggeration. 

 The animals in themselves are so wonderful, and the mere presence of 

 representatives of South America, Africa, Asia and western Europe, 

 in the Rocky Mountain region, appeals so strongly to the imagination, 

 that the bare scientific facts are of sufficient interest without exag- 

 geration. 



