K^lSrS^S CITY 



Review of Science and Industry, 



A MONTHLY RECORD OF PROGRESS IN 



SCIENCE, MECHANIC ARTS AND LITERATURE. 



VOL. V. APRIL, 1882. NO. 12. 



PALEONTOLOGY. 



ON THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE EXISTING 



HORSES. 



BY JACOB L. WORTMAN. 



Within the past few years the fossil deposits of the West have become so 

 noted for their production of fossil remains, that iVmerican palaeontology must be 

 assigned its appropriate rank, as a leading feature of American science. It is a 

 lamentable fact that our educational institutions, generally good in other respects, 

 are, with few exceptions, little prepared to teach the important results that have 

 been reached in this field of investigation, but content themselves with a presen- 

 tation of the subject as it appeared fifty years ago. The most reasonable explana- 

 tion of this lack of interest on their part is probably found in the circumstance 

 that they are ruled by a feeling adverse to the general conclusions favorable to 

 the doctrine of evolution inevitably reached in a study of this branch. This re- 

 sults in the selection of unqualified men to fill the appropriate chairs, and who 

 do not apprehend the true significance of the evidence produced. 



The absolute inter-dependence of important questions in biology, as well as 

 the necessity of such knowledge in the general "make-up " of a scientific educa- 

 tion, are strong arguments in favor of a more extended study of palseontology. 



A complete knowledge of the origin and development of any single form is 

 seldom made out, and I may safely say that it was not until the authors of the 

 Evolution Hypothesis brought forth their arguments to show that existing species 



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