126 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



ready for use. It is a distinguishing characteristic 

 of these early mastodons that their tusks have a strip 

 of enamel along the inside, while the modern 

 elephants' tusks have only a vestige of enamel at the 

 extreme tip that is quickly worn off. 



Another remarkable inhabitant of Kansas during 

 the Loup Fork Period was the three-toed horse, an 

 animal but little larger than the newborn colt of an 

 ordinary farm horse, which evidently lived in herds, 

 judging from the great quantity of loose teeth that 

 we have found. Its toes were spreading, which en- 

 abled it to walk over bogs and mossy quagmires on 

 the shores of lakes or rivers, and thus escape the 

 fangs of bloodthirsty tigers by venturing farther 

 out on the soft ground than they dared to follow. 



In 1882, while employed by the Agassiz Museum, 

 I found the famous Sternberg Quarry at Long Isl- 

 and on Prairie Dog Creek in Phillips County. I 

 had been exploring for weeks the region at the head 

 of the branches of Deer Creek, which spread out in 

 the divide like a fan; but although once in a while, 

 especially in the neighborhood of Bread Bowl 

 Mound, I had found fragments of the bones of 

 Loup Fork animals in the sod, I had not met with 

 much success, as the rocks here disintegrate so easily 

 and hold moisture so readily that the whole country 

 is covered with grass. There are thirty-three 

 streams in this county as a result of the immense 



