GEOLOGY. 319 



" It appears to be quite -well authenticated that the horse, which is now so 

 extensively distributed, both in a wild and domestic condition, throughout 

 North and South America, did not inhabit these continents at the time of 

 their discovery by Europeans. With this fact in view, in conjunction with 

 the circumstance that animal remains of late periods may become accidental 

 occupants of earlier geological formations, we should require strong evidence 

 to be advanced before it is admitted that the horse belonged to an ancient 

 fauna of the western world. At the present time the evidence appears to be 

 suliiciently ample to justify the latter conclusion, and it is further sustained 

 by the discovery, in the same part of the world, of the remains of two spe- 

 cies of the closely allied genus Elpparion. 



" Remains of the horse, discovered in Brazil, Buenos Ayres, and Chili, have 

 been indicated by Dr. Lund, Prof. Owen, M. Weddell, and M. Gervais. These 

 remains exhibit no well-marked characters distinguishing them from corre- 

 sponding portions of the skeleton of the recent horse ; and from a comparison 

 of the figures and descriptions which have been given of most of them, to- 

 gether with some remarks of the latter author, it is doubtful whether they 

 belong to more than a single species, the Equus neogceus of Dr. Lund. 



" Prof. Buckland and Sir John Richardson have described remains of the 

 horse, discovered in association with those of the elephant, moose, reindeer, 

 and musk-ox, in the ice-cliffs of Eschscholtz Bay, Arctic America. 



" In the United States, remains of the horse, chiefly consisting of teeth, 

 have been noticed by Drs. Mitchell,* Harlan,t and DeKay ;t but these gen?- 

 tlemen have neither given descriptions nor figures by which to identify the 

 specimens. Some of the latter are stated to have been found in the vicinity 

 of Neversink Hills, New Jersey ; others in the excavation for the Chesapeake 

 and Ohio Canal, near Georgetown, District of Columbia; and some in the 

 later tertiary deposit on the Neuse River, in the vicinity of Newborn, North 

 Carolina. Dr. DeKay, in speaking of such remains, says, ' they resemble 

 those of the common horse, but from their size apparently belonged to a 

 larger animal,' and he refers them to a species with the name of Equus 

 major. 



" Dr. R. W. Gibbes has given information of the discovery of teeth of 

 the horse in the pleiocene deposit of Darlingtonf South Carolina; in Rich- 

 land District, of the .same State; in Skidaway Island, Georgia, and on the 

 banks of the Potomac river. He further observes that he obtained the tooth 

 of a horse, from eocene marl, in the Ashley river, South Carolina; but the 

 researches of Prof. Holmes H indubitably indicate the specimen to have been 

 an accidental occupant of the formation. 



" Specimens of isolated teeth, and a few bones of the horse, from the post- 

 pleiocene and recent deposits of this country, have frequently been submit- 

 ted to my inspection. Many of these I have unhesitatingly pronounced to 

 be relics of the domestic horse, though I feel persuaded that many remains 

 of an extinct species are undistinguishable from the recent one. 



" Whether more than one extinct species is indicated among the numerous 

 specimens of teeth I have had the opportunity of examining, I have been 



* Catalogue of Organic Remains, 1826, 7, 8. 



t Med. a Phys. Researches, 1835, 267. 



Zoology, New York, pi. 1, Mammalia, 108. 



Proc. Amer. Assoc. 1850, 66. 



|| Ibidem, 68. 



