94 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
at all unlikely in view of the bit of ancient history he has given us in the Ameri- 
can Journal of Science for December, 1896, in his scheme of the nomenclature 
and characteristic fossils of the later Neozoic epochs. 
Since the Loup Fork is Miocene or early Pliocene and the Equus beds are 
clearly late Pleistocene, it is quite certain that there must have been quite an in- | 
terval between them, which in Texas is represented by the Blanco and Goodnight 
beds. The Goodnight beds exist in Kansas; and I confidently believe that the 
Blanco will be found also. 
In conclusion, because of its pertinency to the present subject, I will quote 
from a paper of Cope’s in the American Naturalist for 1895, p. 598: 
‘¢The Equus beds are found covering areas of various extent in Oregon, Ne- 
vada, California and the Staked Plains, southern Texas, Chihuahua, and the 
valley of Mexico. Their most eastern station 1s western Nebraska. They contain 
a fauna which includes one extinct species of the Megalonyx beds ( Equus major 
DeK.) and the recent Castor fiber. They contain the extinct genus of sloths, 
Mylodon, of a species different from that of the east, and four species of camels. 
of the genus Holomeniscus, and a peccary. Recent species of Canis and Thomo- 
mys occur, while two extinct horses (Equus occidentalis and EK. tau) are com- 
mon. The hairy elephant, E. primigenius, is abundant, while Mastodon 
americanus is rare, if occurring at all. The proportion of recent to extinct 
species and genera in the Equus beds is very similar to that occurring in the 
Megalonyx fauna, while they differ as to details. This fauna has also disap- 
peared from the continent; a few species, as in the east, surviving to a later 
date. Was this disappearance due to submergence, as in the east? ”’ 
That there was any submergence of the western plains during the Champlain 
epoch, I cannot believe possible. / 
‘Cope’s Megalonyx fauna of the east “includes the extinct genera of mam- 
malia Platygonus, Smilodon, Megalonyx, Mylodon, Mastodon, and extinct 
species of Bos, Dicotyles, Equus, Tapirus, Ursus, Castor, Arvicola, and Lagomys.”’ 
Asis seen above, all these extinct genera, with the exception of Smilodon, 
which is replaced by Dinobastis, occur in Kansas. 
‘*The remains of man have been shown to occur in the gold-bearing gravels. 
T have found them (obsidian spear and arrow-heads) in profusion mixed with the 
bones of the extinct fauna at Fossil Lake, Oregon, in a friable and wind-blown 
formation. This man, however, so far at least as regards California, was not 
paleolithic, since he made mostly ground pestles and mortars.”’ 
‘‘There is, therefore, considerable probability that man was contemporary 
with the Equus fauna, and the Equus fauna was contemporary with the Mega- 
lonyx fauna of the east,’’ all of which conclusions the evidence from Kansas 
substantiates. 
The problems of especial interest in the Neocene of Kansas are the position, 
thickness and characteristics of the Goodnight beds, the determination of the 
Blanco beds, and the relative extent of all these and of the Equus beds overlying 
them. 
