1895.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 247 



portion is five inches long superiorly and presents an unbroken up- 

 per surface three inches wide at base. The greater portion of the 

 posterior surface at the base is also intact but the anterior and in- 

 ferior surfaces have been destroyed. 



The greatest vertical diameter of the core may be approxi- 

 mated at three and one-half inches, the horizontal being slightly less. 

 From the disposition of the deep longitudinal grooves on its unin- 

 jured surface this core was probably eight or ten inches long. 



These measurements indicate an animal much larger than 

 the largest existing bison in America and approximate the size 

 of the smaller extinct bison, Bison antiquus of Leidy and 

 Allen. A remarkable character of the Durham cave specimen is 

 found in its curvature and the relative position to the frontal plate. 

 The superior longitudinal profile of the core is regularly convex 

 throughout, forming the arc of a circle whose radius is about twelve 

 inches; the posterior profile viewed from above is slightly concave, 

 the anterior is broken, but the direction of the grooves show it to 

 have been convex." The superior frontal arch viewed from behind 

 is slightly depressed from the base of core towards the median line of 

 the skull, but at a distance of one and one-half inches it rises to 

 a point which would touch the continued arc of the superior profile 

 of the core. The superior base surface of the core is very flat, 

 describing in a breadth of three inches when viewed along a line 

 at right angles to the skull, a regular arc whose radius is six inches. 

 The line of division between the base of core and frontal bone 

 lacks in a remarkable degree the osseous rugosity and prominence 

 seen in the other members of this genus. It this core belongs to 

 the left side of the skull, it very closely resembles the style of horn 

 seen in Bubalus buffelus (Blum.) in which the drop of the horn 

 is uniformly downward and backward from base to apex, the 

 skull and horn cores forming, when viewed from behind, a regular, 

 obtusely parabolic arch. Should it prove, however, that the speci- 

 men belongs to the right side, the drop is a forward one. There 

 is a suggestion of the genus Ovibos in the flatness and downward 

 growth of this horn, but a comparison of it with O. moschatus, 0. 

 eavifrons, and 0. bombifrons shows a radical difference. From 

 moschatus it is at once distinguishable by its narrowness and smooth- 

 ness at base of core, by its greater convexity and by the width of 

 intercorneal diameter of frontal bones; from eavifrons by the lack 



