Conclusion 267 



began work on them, I am pleased to be able to tell 

 my readers of two noble specimens of the Pleistocene 

 Age I have just secured from the plains of Kansas, 

 that great treasure house of the animals of the past. 

 One is a majestic Bison, whose head towering above 

 that of his fellows supported a pair of horn cores 

 measuring six feet from tip to tip. Along the curve 

 the distance is eight feet. The length of the head is 

 two feet, the distance between the horns sixteen 

 inches, and from the center of the orbits, one foot. 

 These splendid horn cores were uncovered through 

 a fortunate chance. It seems that the Missouri 

 Pacific Railway, wishing to shorten the creek in the 

 vicinity of Hoxie, Sheridan County, Kansas, cut a 

 new right-of-way for it across a bend. Their exca- 

 vation came within two feet of the bones buried be- 

 low, thirty-five feet from the surface of the earth; a 

 friendly freshet washed them out, and they were 

 discovered by Mr. Frank Lee and Harley Hender- 

 son, of Hoxie, Kansas, June 15, 1902. I was so 

 fortunate as to secure them in June, 1908. I have 

 filled them with white shellac, and they are now in 

 condition to be preserved always, a specimen of the 

 grand old bison of the Pleistocene time. Now their 

 burial places are three thousand feet nearer the stars 

 than the day they were buried there, as then the 

 climate was semi-tropical and the land they roamed 

 over near sea level. The largest pair of horn cores 



