voluminous mass of ignorance and half-baked learning that I wrote an 

 article called "American Elephant Myths," which was published in 

 Scribner's Magazine for 1887. 



Nearly forty years later, my burrowing through all this dusty rubbish 

 had a curious sequel. In 1924, I received a letter from my colleague, 

 Professor Shipman, written from Bad Neuheim in Germany, and 

 asking, on behalf of an English lady whom he met at Nauheim, whether 

 I could give him any information concerning the skeleton of the Levia- 

 than, "from the head waters of the Missouri River," which was ex- 

 hibited in London in 1839 or '40. This EngHsh lady was engaged in 

 editing the diary of Fanny Burney, the younger (not Mme. d'Arblay), 

 who had set down her visit to the exhibition of Leviathan. The editor 

 was anxious to learn something of the nature of the fabulous monster. 

 Shipman wrote me on the off chance of my being able to supply the 

 needed information and, in so doing, applied to one of the two or three 

 people, alive, who could give him an immediate answer. The men to 

 whom all that was a twice-told tale, such as Sir Richard Owen in Eng- 

 land, Dr. Leidy and Professor Dana in this country, were all dead and 

 few of the living would have any occasion to dig into that musty liter- 

 ature, which is much more curious than important. Truly, coincidence 

 has a long arm. 



In the summer of 1886, again taking my Wife and baby to East 

 Rockaway, I started West on my fifth expedition. The party, so long 

 as I was with it, remained in the Bridger country, finishing the work 

 begun by the '85 party. After a few weeks, Speir cam.e out to take my 

 place in the manner previously described, and I returned to Long Island 

 in time to welcome the arrival of our first daughter, Adeline Mitchill. 



In December, something, I no longer remember what, took me to 

 Cambridge and, when going through the Harvard Museum, I asked 

 if I might not see the White River fossils which were collected in 1882 

 by S. S. Garman. We heard of him frequently that summer at the Pine 

 Ridge Agency, but never happened to meet him. The collection, which 

 had been merely cleaned and stored in trays, was immediately put at 

 my disposal, in the kindest manner. I spent some hours in going through 

 it and was delighted, for I found a lot of fine things and several entirely 

 new unknown types. My attention was especially attracted by a large 

 skull, of a kind that I had never seen before, which was lying in an 

 open tray. It turned out to be a new kind of aquatic rhinoceros, which 

 Osborn and I named Metamynodon and was, of itself, enough to give 

 distinction to the collection. 



C 201 ;] 



