6h THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



From the Cretaceous of Kansas he has obtained the first American 

 Pterodactyles, including a new order (Pteranodontia), a new sub-class 

 of birds with teeth (Odontornithes), including two new orders, the 

 OdontolccB and Odontotormce and many new Mosasauroid reptiles. 

 In the anatomy of the latter group he has made a number of interest- 

 ing discoveries which have been of great value in determining its rela- 

 tionship. From the Eocene Tertiary of the Rocky Mountains, he has 

 brought to light the first monkeys, bats, and marsupials, found in this 

 country; two new orders of mammals, the Tillodontia, which seem to 

 be related to the Carnivores, Ungulates, and Rodents ; and the Dinoce- 

 rata, which were huge Ungulates, elephantine in bulk, bearing on their 

 skulls two or more pairs of horn cores. From the same Eocene come 

 the two earliest equines, Eohippus and OroMppus, and a host of other 

 strange forms, all of them widely different from anything now living. 



In the Miocene lake-basins of the West, Prof. Marsh has found 

 numerous other forms, many of them apparently descendants of their 

 predecessors in the Eocene, while others seem to stand alone. In the 

 Miocene of the Plains occur the huge Erontotheridce, a new family of 

 Ungulates, first defined by Prof. Marsh. In size they equaled the Di- 

 nocerata of the Eocene, and like them their skulls were armed with 

 horns. The same formation has also yielded to this explorer the first 

 Miocene monkey found in America, while from the Oregon lake of this 

 age he has described the oldest known Edentates. The new fossils ob- 

 tained from the Pliocene lake-basins of the Plains and of Oregon are 

 not less numerous than those from the earlier ones, but they are of less 

 interest to the general reader. The remains of these ancient creatures, 

 preserved in the Museum of Yale College, present a series which, for 

 its interest and value to the biologist, is not surpassed by any collec- 

 tion in the world. Not less than four hundred new species of fossil 

 animals have been collected by Prof. Marsh, and their remains are all 

 at present in New Haven. 



Prof. Marsh is President of the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, and will preside at the St. Louis meeting this 

 year; and, as retiring president, will deliver his address in 1879. At 

 the meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, in 

 April last, he was elected vice-president of that body, and, by the death 

 of Prof. Henry, he has become its presiding officer. He is a member of 

 several scientific societies in Europe, and has recently received from the 

 Geological Society of London the Bigsby medal for his important dis- 

 coveries in paleontology. 



Prof. Marsh is a nephew of the late George Peabody, Esq., of Lon- 

 don, and the most important gifts to science by this philanthropist are 

 due to his influence. The Peabody Museum of Natural History, at 

 New Haven, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, at 

 Cambridge, as well as the Peabody Academy of Science, in Salem, Mas- 

 sachusetts, are largely the results of his advice and carefully-considered 



