VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY MATTHEW 285 



Asia has hitherto been a terra incognita to the vertebrate paleon- 

 tologist, and the finding of rich and extensive fossil fields in the 

 Gobi Desert with Cretaceous, Eocene, Oligocene, and Pliocene for- 

 mations, each yielding considerable faunas and finely preserved 

 specimens, in the first season's exploration, promises to open up a 

 completely new field in vertebrate paleontology. 42 Other fossiliferous 

 horizons will probably be discovered by further explorations, and 

 the history of the land vertebrates of the great central Asiatic con- 

 tinent in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras will be placed on record 

 in considerable detail. 



In the cellars and storage racks of many museums, both in this 

 country and abroad, are important collections of fossil vertebrates 

 acquired many years ago, but never prepared or described. The 

 labor and expense of preparing, studying, and describing this ma- 

 terial to make it of use to science is as valuable a contribution as 

 though it were fresh from the field. A considerable part of the 

 work in the National Museum and some in the American Museum 

 lias dealt with specimens collected long ago for Marsh and Cope. 

 Recently the Yale Museum has made a vigorous and highly successful 

 campaign to prepare and describe the great fossil collections left to 

 that institution by Professor Marsh. A series of articles by Lull, 

 Troxell, and Thorpe in the American Journal of Science testifies 

 to the importance of these additions to our knowledge. 



Two very valuable and authoritative memoirs by Doctor Teilhard 

 de Chardin should be noted in this connection. In one the classic 

 Cernaysian fauna at the base of the French Eocene is admirably 

 described and illustrated from the collections in the Paris Museum. 48 

 The relations of this fauna and correlation with the Paleocene 

 faunas of this country are now at last based on adequate data. Of 

 scarcely less importance is Pere Teilhard's memoir on the carnivora 

 of the Phosphorite fauna, also based on the unrivaled collections 

 in the museum at Paris. 44 



A third important memoir from the Paris Museum, sumptuously 

 illustrated and admirably presented by the director, Marcellin 

 Boule, 45 describes the fine collections from the Pleistocene of the 

 Tarija Valley in Bolivia, in the Paris Museum. 



Finally, I must not omit to mention a series of great synthetic 

 studies by Osborn, dealing with the later Tertiary Equidse, now pub- 



42 W. Granger and C. P. Berkey (1922): Amer. Mus. Novitates, no. 42; 1923, ibid., 

 no. 77. 



fl P. de Chardin Teilhard (1921) : Mammiferes de I'Eocene inferiur francais. Annales 

 de Taleont., x, pp. 171-176; xi, pp. 1-108, pis. i-viii. 



"Teilhard (1915) : Les Carnassiers des phosphorites de Quercy. Annales de Paleont., 

 Ix, pp. 109-195, pis. xii-xx ; 1920, Sur quelques primates des phosphorites de Quercy. 

 Idem., x, pp. 2-20. 



48 M. Boule and A. Thevenin (1920) : Mammiferes Fossiles de Tarija, Mission Scien- 

 tiflque Crequi-Montfort. Soudier, Paris. 



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