162 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 
progenitor of the horse, and how can it be ~ 
shown that there is any bond of kinship be- 
tween him and, for example, the great French ; 
Percheron? There is only one way in which 
we can obtain this knowledge, and but one ~ 
method by which the relationship can be — 
shown, and that is by collecting the fossil re- — 
mains of animals long extinct and comparing — 
them with the bones of the recent horse, a — 
branch of science known as Paleontology. It 
has taken a very long time to gather the nec- — 
essary evidence, and it has taken a vast amount } 
of hard work in our western Territories, for 
“the country that is as hot as Hades, watered 
by stagnant alkali pools, is almost invariably 
the richest in fossils.” Likewise it has called ~ 
for the expenditure of much time and more pa- | 
tience to put together some of this petrified — 
evidence, fragmentary in every sense of the 
word, and get it into such shape that it could — 
be handled by the anatomist. Still, the work 
has been done, ‘and, link by link, the chain has | 
been constructed that unites the horse of to-day 
with the horse of very many yesterdays. ; 
The very first links in this chain are the re- 
