NATURAL HISTORY. 4l5 



descriptions which have been given of most of them, together with some remarks 

 of the latter author, it is doubtful whether they belong to more than a single 

 species, the Equus neogceus of Dr. Lund. 



" Prof. Buckland and Sir John Richardson have described remains of the horse, 

 discovered in association with those of the elephant, moose, reindeer, and musk-ox, 

 in the ice cliffs of Eschscholtz Bay, Arctic America. 



" In the United States, remains of the horse, chiefly consisting of teeth, have 

 been noticed by Drs. Mitchell, Harlan, and DeKay, but these gentlemen have 

 neither given descriptions nor figures by which to identify the specimens. Some 

 of the latter are stated to have been found in the vicinity of Neversink Hills, New 

 Jersey ; others in the excavation for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, near George- 

 town, District of Columbia ; and some in the latter tertiary deposit on the Neuse 

 Eiver, in the vicinity of Newbern, North Carolina. Dr. DeKay, in speaking of 

 such remains, says, ' they resemble those of the common horse, but from their size 

 apparently belong to a larger animal,' aud he refei-a them to a species with the 

 name of Equus major. 



" Dr. R. W. Gibbes has given information of the discovery of teeth of the horse 

 in the pliocene deposit of Darlington, South Carolina; in Richland District of the 

 same State ; in Skidaway Island, Georgia, and on the banks of the Potomac River. 

 He further observes that he obtained the tooth of a horse, from eocene marl, in the 

 Ashley river, South Carolina, but the researches of Prof. Holmes indubitably 

 indicates the specimen to have been an accidental occupant of the formation. 



" Specimens of isolated teeth, and a few bones of the horse, from the post- 

 pliocene and recent deposits of this country, have frequently been submitted to 

 my inspection. Many of these I have unhesitatingly pronounced to be relics of 

 the domestic horse, though I feel persuaded that many remains of an extinct 

 species are undistinguishable from the recent one. 



*' Whether more than one extiQct species is indicated among the numerous spec- 

 imens of teeth I have had the opportunity of examining, I have been uaable 

 satisfactorily to determine. The specimens present so much difference in condition 

 of preservation, or change in structure ; so much variation in size, from that of the 

 more ordinary horse to the largest English dray horse ; and such variableness in 

 constitution, from that of the recent horse to the most complex condition belonging 

 to any extinct species described, that it would be about as easy to indicate a half 

 dozen species as it would two. 



" Under the circumstances, I would characterize the extinct horse of the United 

 States as having had about the same size as the recent one, ranging from the 

 more ordinary varieties to the English dray horse, with molar teeth, frequently 

 comparatively simple in construction, but with a strong disposition to become 

 complex 



" Among the number of teeth of the horse in Prof. Holmes' collection labelled 

 as coming from the post-pliocene deposit of Ashley River, there are several 

 which, from their size, construction and condition of preservation, I feel convinced 

 are of recent date : and these no doubt became mingled with the true fossils of 

 that formation where it is exposed on the Ashley River, in which position I per- 

 sonally found undoubted remains of the recent horse and other domestic animals 



