THE AMEEICAl^ EISONS. 



jectnre that the buffalo to 



which it belonged was about ten or eleven feet 



high." 



i~ I 



^^^-^■^ -I , 



The least breadth of the forehead (at the narrowest point between the 

 orbits and horn-cores) is fifteen inches^ or about two inches greater than the 

 corresponding measurement of old males of Bison americamts. The occipital 

 condyles show that the skull would require an atlas having an articular cup 

 with a transverse axis of not less than seven and a half to eight inches, or 

 more than two inches (more than one third) greater than that of the fossil 

 atlas from Darien, Georgia, doubtfully referred by Dr. Leidy to Bison latifrons. 

 If referable to that species it must be considered as having belonged to a 

 female, the skull above described being undoubtedly that of a male. 



The second skull referable to Bison latifrons is that described by Dr. Car- 

 penter from the banks of the Brazos Eiver, near San Felipe, Texas. Dr. 

 Carpenter's description is as follows : 



'^ Fossil Ox.— This specimen consists of the frontal bone, with portions of 

 the bony nuclei of the horns. The frontal portion of the orbit of one eye 

 is nearly entire ; the margins of the other are broken. None of the bones 

 of the lower portions of the head are left, being replaced by a conglomerate 



mass of sand and pebbles The frontal bone is nearly plane ante- 



riorly, and the horns arise laterally from a level with this plane; but the 

 bone bulges about two and one half inches in the occipital portion above the 

 horns, as shown in the figure." The figure is a rude wood-cut, representing 



4 



the specimen ^^ one sixteenth its linear dimensions." 



According to Dr. Carpenter's measurements this specimen nearly equalled 



w 



in size the one described by Dr. Leidy. The circumference of the horn-cores 

 at the base was seventeen inches, or about three and a half inches less, if 



^ 



measured actually around the base of the horn-core and not around the neck 

 of the horn-core. This measurement in Dr. Leidy's specimen is only eighteen 

 inches, or one inch greater than the measurement given by Dr. Carpenter. 

 The circumference of the horn-core of Carpenter's specimen, at the distance 

 of eighteen inches from the base, is given as fourteen and a half inches, 

 which indicates a size at this point fully as great as Dr. Leidy's specimen 

 could have had. In Dr. Carpenter s specimen considerable portions of the 

 horn-cores were still attached to the skull, namely, eighteen inches of the left 

 horn-core and two feet of the right horn-core. ''The bones of the horns," 

 says Dr. Carpenter, "are nearly round, and they have a slight curvature 



* Historical Disquisition on the Maminotli, etc, pp. 84, 85, 



I 



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