404 THE PEABODY MUSEUM. 



und 2^ high — a goblet worthy of the Sea-God. Besides the general col- 

 lection of marine animals, there are three separate collections which are 

 special in their character. These are, one from the New England coast 

 (already alluded to); one from the Pacific coast, complete, from Behring's to 

 Magellan's Straits, and one equally complete Irom the coasts of our South- 

 ern States. In general it should be said that the completeness of the collec- 

 tions from the coasts of the United States is one of the most satisfactory 

 features of this Museum. 



Each of the floors has its OAvn proper laboratory and working rooms, well 

 appointed, and in constant use by the professors in the department to which 

 the floor is appropriated. 



From the creatures that are now existing on the globe to those that per- 

 ished in by-gone geological epochs thousands of centuries ago, is in this 

 Museum only a step to the lower story. The "vertebrate fossils" have a 

 room to themselves, and even when the choicest of them are picked from 

 Prof. Marsh's abundant collections, they will more than fill the space assigned. 

 Already in the cases intended for mastodons and fossil elephants, the great 

 bones of the Otisville mastodon have crowded out all else. The bones pro- 

 duce the impression of great size, and sj)ectators view them with apjjarent 

 awe. The enormous teeth and jaws are complete ; the skull is 3-| feet long ; 

 the great arch of the pelvis is 5 feet across, and still bears the mark — now 

 historic — where an inquisitive countryman poked it with his cane, just to 

 find out how hard the bones were. It is the best preserved mastodon yet 

 discovered. 



Ten years ago there was scarcely a specimen of existing or fossil vertebrates 

 among the collection of Yale College — unless indeed some of her professors 

 were themselves unconsciously shelved. To-day these collections, especially 

 of the rarer forms, have no equal in the world. I sec no other way to pre- 

 sent the facts than to give full credit to Prof. O. C. Marsh, and state some 

 of his discoveries in as few words as possible. His fossil horses — or rather 

 animals of the horse family — from the 4^ toed quadruped, no bigger than a 

 fox, to fully developed and single-hoofed steeds not to be distinguished from 

 those of the present day — illustrate the successive strata of the rocks from 

 the loAvest eocene epoch upward, by no less than forty species, all different, 

 yet all indicative of the gradual development of the modern-horse. Another 

 series of animals forming the connecting links between reptiles and birds, 

 has been very largely illustrated by Prof. Marsh's labors. All the steps of 

 this most important chain of development have not yet been ascertained, 

 but the contributions to it from the fossils of the "West that are in the Pea- 

 body Museum make the few other discoveries in this field of research 

 comparatively insignificant. Of birds that existed in the Cretaceous epoch, 

 there are, for instance, only two known (from fragments) in EurojDe; here 

 there are the remains of not less than twenty distinct species, there being of 

 each an average of about a dozen specimens. These include the wonderful 

 birds with teeth, appropriately named the Odontornithes, which are now 



