THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN PALEONTOLOGY 



not their number but their nature ; for among them are 

 numerous illustrations of just such intermediate types of 

 organisms as must have existed in the past if the suc- 

 cession of life on the globe has been an unbroken lineal 

 succession. Here are reptiles with bat-like wings, and 

 others with bird-like pelves and legs adapted for bipedal 

 locomotion. Here are birds with teeth and other rep- 

 tilian characters. In short, what with reptilian birds 

 and bird-like reptiles, the gap between modern reptiles 

 and birds is quite bridged over. In a similar way, vari- 

 ous diverse mammalian forms, as the tapir, the rhinoc- 

 eros, and the horse, are linked together by fossil pro- 

 genitors. And most important of all, Professor Marsh 

 has discovered a series of mammalian remains, occurring 

 in successive geological epochs, which are held to repre- 

 sent beyond cavil the actual line of descent of the modern 

 horse ; tracing the lineage of our one-toed species back 

 through two and three toed forms, to an ancestor in the 

 eocene or early tertiary that had four functional toes 

 and the rudiment of a fifth. 



These and such like revelations have come to light in 

 our own time; are, indeed, still being disclosed. Need- 

 less to say, no Index of any sort now attempts to con- 

 ceal them; yet something has been accomplished towards 

 the same end by the publication of the discoveries in 

 Smithsonian bulletins, and in technical memoirs of 

 government surveys. Fortunately, however, the results 

 have been rescued from that partial oblivion by such 

 interpreters as Professors Huxley and Cope, so the un- 

 scientific public has been allowed to gain at least an 

 inkling of the wonderful progress of paleontology in our 

 generation. 



The writings of Huxley in particular epitomize the 



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