498 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
Three of these ancient cobs are compared in plate 1, figure 2, with 
a 1-cent piece whose diameter is about equal to their length. One 
of the tiny specimens is compared in plate 1, figure 3, with ears of 
two modern races of corn: the dent corn of the U.S. corn belt and 
a large-seeded flour corn of Peru. How could a corn like the Bat 
Cave corn have evolved into these and other modern races even in 
5,600 years? ‘This is the principal question which we hoped to answer 
by retracing some of the steps involved in corn’s evolution under 
domestication. 
Since there were no living seeds of the Bat Cave corn it was 
impossible to work forward experimentally from it to modern corn. 
The alternative was to work backward from present-day corn by 
combining primitive characteristics still occurring in living varieties. 
But what characteristics of corn are primitive? My associate, W. C. 
Galinat, and I sought to determine this by an intensive study of 
one of the Bat Cave specimens which contained the partial remains 
of a single kernel. Each part of this cob was carefully dissected 
out and measured. On the basis of the measurements, Galinat pre- 
CM 
Ficure 2.—Diagrammatic longitudinal section of one of the Bat Cave cobs, based on meas- 
urements of dissected parts. The tiny kernels show that this was a popcorn; the long 
pedicels on which the kernels are borne and the bracts which almost enclose them indicate 
that it was also a pod corn. [Drawing by W. C. Galinat] 
