CHAPTER III 

 DISCOVERY OF THE TITANOTHERES AND ORIGINAL DESCRIPTIONS OF THE TYPES 



SECTION 1. HISTORY OF DISCOVERY 



Full descriptions of the geologic and geographic 

 positions of the several types and kinds of titano- 

 theres are given in Chapter II. The present chapter 

 relates the history of the explorations and of the 

 gradual discovery of the character and relations of the 

 titanotheres. 



THE OLIGOCENE TITANOTHERES 



THE PIONEER PERIOD: PROUT, OWEN, EVANS, LEIDY 

 (1846-1873) 



The Big Badlands of South Dakota and north- 

 western Nebraska are even now practically unknown 

 to most Americans. As these lands lie in an arid 

 region far from navigable rivers — a region that was 

 formerly occupied by hostile Indians and that offers 

 little attraction to either the prospector or the set- 

 tler — it is not surprising that their fossil wonders long 

 lay hidden from the world. The fossil remains of the 

 great animals described in this monograph were known 

 to the Indians and referred to in their mythology as 

 "thunder horses." (See Preface, p. xxi.) 



In 1846 Dr. Hiram A. Prout, of St. Louis, sent to 

 Professors Dana and Silliman of Yale College a cast 

 of a remarkable fossil that he had received from "a 

 friend residing at one of the trading posts of the St. 

 Louis Fur Co. on the Missouri River." Front's brief 

 notes, together with a crude sketch of one of the lower 

 molars, were accordingly published in the American 

 Journal of Science and Arts. (Prout, 1846.1, pp. 

 288, 289.) In a later communication Prout (1847.1) 

 stated that this fossil (fig. 85) was discovered in the 

 "Mauvais Terre, on the White River, one of the west- 

 ern confluents of the Missouri." This was the famous 

 specimen described by Prout as a "gigantic Palaeo- 

 therium," which Leidy tells us (1852.1, p. 551) was 

 "the first of the many mammalian remains which have 

 been brought to the notice of the scientific world from 

 the vast Eocene cemetery of Nebraska." It thus gave 

 the first hint to scientists that "the region of Nebraska 

 Territory of the United States appears to be as rich in 

 the remains of Mammalia and Chelonia of the Eocene 

 period as the deposits of the same age of the Paris 

 Basin." (Leidy, 1852.1, p. 539.) 



The fossil jaw described by Prout represented an 

 animal of great size. "The entire jawbone," he says, 

 "must have been at least 30 inches long, which far 

 exceeds in size the PalaeotJierium magnum." The 

 reference to Cuvier's PalaeotJierium was, under the 

 circumstances, very natural, because the lower molars 

 of Front's specimen were surmounted by crescentic 

 cutting surfaces somewhat like those of Palaeotherium. 



This discovery evidently attracted attention abroad, 

 for in 1849 the French paleontologist Pomel (1849.1, 

 pp. 73-75), after carefully considering Prout's descrip- 

 tion and figures, stated that the fossil represented a 

 new subgenus of paleotheres, for which he proposed 

 the name Menodus giganteus, the generic name re- 

 ferring to the crescents of the lower molars, the specific 

 name to the great size of the animal. 



Meanwhile (in 1839, 1840-1849) the United States 

 Government geologist. Dr. David Dale Owen, was 

 making his extensive geologic reconnaissance of Wis- 

 consin, Iowa, and adjacent States. In his final report 

 (Owen, 1852.1, p. 194) he tells us that he was "de- 

 sirous, if possible, to connect the geology of the Missis- 

 sippi Valley, through Iowa, with the Cretaceous and 

 Tertiary formations of the upper Missouri, a matter 

 very important to the proper understanding of the 

 formations of the intervening country, which it had 

 been made my particular duty to explore." Finding 

 it impracticable to explore the Missouri region himself 

 he detailed to this work one of his assistants, Mr. John 

 Evans. Late in the field season of 1849 Evans "finally 

 reached that most curious unexplored region, the corner 

 of the 'Badlands' (Mauvaises Terres), lying high up 

 on White River, a locality which seemed likely, above 

 all others, to furnish satisfactory information regard- 

 ing the precise character and age of the Tertiary de- 

 posits of the upper Missouri country." (Owen, 1852.1, 

 p. 195.) 



From Evans's report (p. 197) Owen gives the fol- 

 lowing description of the Mauvaises Terres of White 

 River: 



To the surrounding country, however, the Mauvaises Terres 

 present the most striking contrast. From the uniform, monoto- 

 nous open prairie, the traveler suddenly descends, one or two 

 hundred feet, into a valley that looks as if it liad sunk away 

 from the surrounding world, leaving standing, all over it, 

 thousands of abrupt, irregular, prismatic, and columnar masses, 

 frequently capped with irregular pyramids and stretching up 

 to a height of from one to two hundred feet or more. 



So thickly are these natural towers studded over the surface 

 of this extraordinary region tliat the traveler threads his way 

 through deep, confined, labyrinthine passages, not unlike the 

 narrow, irregular streets and lanes of some quaint old town of 

 the European continent. Viewed in the distance, indeed, these 

 rocky piles, in their endless succession, assume the appearance 

 of massive artificial structures, decked out with all the acces- 

 sories of buttress and turret, arched doorway and clustered 

 shaft, pinnacle and finial, and tapering spire. 



One might almost imagine oneself approaching some magnifi- 

 cent city of the dead, where the labor and the genius of for- 

 gotten nations had left behind them a multitude of monuments 

 of art and skill. 



On descending from the heights, however, and proceeding 

 to thread this vast labyrinth and inspect, in detail, its deep, 

 intricate recesses, the realities of the scene soon dissipate the 



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