42 Erwin HincJdey Barbour 



one specimen has greatly strengthened the burrow theory, yet 

 the author now has a considerable number of mammalian bones 

 and skeletons more or leas completely overgrown by and in- 

 closed in Daemonelix. One of these, shown in Plate XV., is 

 part of the skeleton of a mammal inclosed in the expanded 

 transverse trunk of Daemonelix. The trunk was but twenty 

 centimeters in diameter — save where greatly expanded in its 

 growth around the skeleton — while the skeleton was as large 

 as that of a deer. It cannot be said that "we have in hand 

 the builder of Daemonelix." 



In several instances we have found the bones of the rhinoc- 

 eros covered thus. No one would admit that such creatures 

 burrowed. One set of rhinoceros bones found weathered out 

 of a dense corkscrew bank near the well-known James Cook 

 ranch, on the Niobrara river, showed all the bones etched in 

 every direction, where the filamentous plant had traced its way 

 over them. (Plate I., Pigs. 6, 7.) Other rhinoceros bcnes 

 found weathered out of a corkscrew bank near Eagle Crag, 

 and those from Squaw Canyon, had the fibres still upon them, 

 just as- they grew originally on these submerged skeletons. 

 (Plate I, Fig. 5.) 



It is common enough to find skulls, jaws, teeth, limb bones, 

 and parts of skeletons, covered more or less completely with 

 Daemonelix fibres. The inference cannot be drawn that these 

 are the bones of the original builders of the Devil's Corkscrew. 

 Neither do the rodents' bones justify such an inference. 



As instructor and acting state geologist, the author's time is 

 divided between the instructional work of his department and 

 the survey of the state. Still he hopes within a year or two 

 at most to offer a formal and exact report on this anomalous 

 group, whose phylogenitic history, when critically made out, 

 promises to be as complete as that of any fossil ever known. 



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