SOME EARLY MAMMALS 251 



ridged and pointed grinding surfaces indicate that they were 

 intended to be applied to the coarser kinds of vegetable substances. 



According to Owen, certain fossils from the lignite deposits of 

 Soisson, Laon, and Meudon, in France, belong to Coryphodon, 

 Speaking of a tooth from Soisson, Cuvier said that the entire 

 skeleton was found indicating an animal almost as large as a bull, 

 but that the workmen employed in the sand-pit (sabliere) unfor- 

 tunately preserved only that one tooth. The first specimen of 

 Coryphodon discovered in America was found in 1871, near 

 Evanston, Wyoming, by Mr. William Cleburne, while engaged 

 as surveyor for the Union Pacific Kailroad, who secured chiefly 

 its teeth and vertebne. More or less perfect specimens were 

 afterwards obtained by Cope during his explorations in New 

 Mexico, under the survey of Captain Wheeler. Kegarded merely 

 as a fossil, it is characteristic of the Lower Eocene of Europe and 

 America ; in North America it is confined to the Wasatch and 

 Wind Eiver epochs, and is absent from the Upper Eocene of both 

 countries. 



Coryphodon is particularly interesting on account of the primi- 

 tive features of its skeleton ; the brain was very small and of a 

 low type. Professor Cope places it, with its allied forms, in a 

 separate order, to which he gives the name Amblypoda, on 

 account of their elephantine limbs and probable ambling gait. 1 



C. hamatus was about six feet long ; while some species were 

 no larger than a tapir, others were as big as an ox (see Plate XL.). 



Professor Cope thinks that in general appearance the Corypho- 

 dons resembled the bear more than any other living animal, with 

 the important exception that in their feet they were like elephants. 



1 Mr. Charles Earle, after a careful revision of this family, has suggested that 

 Cope's species should be greatly reduced in number, many of them in his 

 opinion being only due to differences of age and sex. Bathmodon, Metalo- 

 phodon, Ectodou, Manteodon may all be included in the genus Coryphodon* 



