Life of Lower Lake Region. 125 



carpal and slowly cast aside the subordinate 

 ones. 



Scarcely any lesson in Paleontology has in 

 it more of interest than that of the intermedi- 

 ate stages of progress that connect the func- 

 tional hoof of the Tertiary horse with the rudi- 

 mentary splint of the living horse of the pres- 

 ent time. Here in the Shoshone land of our 

 story the Eastern Oregon of to-day afe the 

 archives of this horse history of the past. In 

 short, in these Shoshone rocks of the Mio- 

 cene age, we see God's creative work of the 

 ages in transforming a five-toed animal to one 

 of a single digit. It is the revelation of this 

 creative process that makes the fossil horse 

 of Oregon so full of scientific interest. 



On Plate XXI is a good illustration of 

 the metacarpals of the horse in one of the 

 stages of this transition. The condition of 

 these metacarpals in the living horse is seen 

 on Plate XXI (i), the lower ends cast loose, 

 only the upper ends articulated, while in fig- 

 ure (2) these lower ends are articulated to 

 phalanges and these in turn to hoof cores. 



