310 THE MOUNTAIN. 



never had been. There is no living native horse in America, 

 the wild horse of the Southwest being the introduced 

 European or Asiatic horse, which has run wild. Recent 

 discoveries of Professor Leidy, through explorations of 

 Messrs. Hayden and Holmes in the South and West, 

 have brought to light a number of fossil horses belonging 

 to the continent. They amount to five genera and seven 

 species, cotemporary with the mastodon. When it is re- 

 membered that all the different shaped horses which we 

 see, from the Shetland pony, weighing three hundred 

 pounds, to the massive Conestoga wagon-horse of a ton 

 weight, and from the greyhound-shaped turf-horse, fleet as 

 the wind, to the clumsy cob or lunk-head with globular car- 

 cass, slow and unwieldy as a fatted hog, are all varieties of 

 one species, E. caballus, the announcement will strike with 

 surprise that there have been five different genera, and seven 

 species of American horses. Many of them have been very 

 peculiar animals, possessing interesting characters. For 

 an account of fossil horses of America, see " Contributions 

 to the Paleontology of North America," published through 

 the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, by the 

 distinguished comparative anatomist, Joseph Leidy. 



But few of the varieties, strains, or bloods of horses, have 

 received any attention in the mountain districts of the State. 

 This is to be deplored, as the commonest kinds of horses 

 grown there have discovered remarkable qualities of action, 

 speed, and endurance. This indifference, it must be ac- 

 knowledged, however, characterizes the whole State of Penn- 

 sylvania. Some of the Southern and Southwestern States 

 have shown a laudable zeal in this department, and have 

 produced horses possessing as noble qualities of the animal, 

 in all vital and artistic points, as have been bred upon 

 earth. 



Pennsylvania has never distinguished herself in this line, 

 with the exception, perhaps, of having grown good draught- 

 horses, and some fine trotters. Eminently utilitarian and 

 common sense, the exclusive turf-horse has had but few 



