128 LECTURES ON EVOLUTION m 



the most superficial deposits of both North and 

 South America, just as they do in Europe. 

 Therefore, for some reason or other no feasible 

 suggestion on that subject, so far as I know, has 

 been made the horse must have died out on 

 this continent at some period preceding the dis- 

 covery of America. Of late years there has been 

 discovered in your Western Territories that 

 marvellous accumulation of deposits, admirably 

 adapted for the preservation of organic remains, 

 to which I referred the other evening, and which 

 furnishes us with a consecutive series of records 

 of the fauna of the older half of the Tertiary 

 epoch, for which we have no parallel in Europe. 

 They have yielded fossils in an excellent state 

 of conservation and in unexampled number and 

 variety. The researches of Leidy and others 

 have shown that forms allied to the Hipparion 

 and the Anchitherium are to be found among 

 these remains. But it is only recently that the 

 admirably conceived and most thoroughly and 

 patiently worked-out investigations of Professor 

 Marsh have given us a just idea of the vast fossil 

 wealth, and of the scientific importance, of these 

 deposits. I have had the advantage of glancing 

 over the collections in Yale Museum ; and I can 

 truly say that, so far as my knowledge extends,, 

 there is no collection from any one region and 

 series of strata comparable, for extent, or for the 

 care with which the remains have been got to- 



