MISCELLANEOUS COXTRIBUTIOXS 415 



Finally, I must not omit to mention a series of great s}Tithetic studies 

 by Osborn, dealing with the later Tertiary Equidse, now published;*^ the 

 evolution of the Titanotheres, completed but not yet published, and the 

 evolution of the Proboscidea, still in progress; the practical completion 

 of the splendid monographs on the Santa Cruz Miocene faimas by 

 Scott ;^^ Winge's monograph on the Brazilian Edentata :^" and a remark- 

 able series of brilliant text-books by Othenio Abel, of Vienna. ^^ There 

 are several other excellent text-books that deserve particular notice, but 

 time will not allow even a mention of them here. 



COXCLUSIOXS AS TO PROGRESS OF RECEXT YeARS 



In the foregoing outline of progress I have been concerned chiefly with 

 discoveries of new material, of new records, because it is the scantv' and 

 fragmentary nature of the evidence that is the chief limit to research in 

 vertebrate paleontology and the chief source of error in our conclusions. 

 In the phrase of a French reviewer, vast floods of ink have been spilled 

 on problems of correlation, of phylogeny, of paleogeography, where a few 

 questionable fragments of fossil vertebrates formed the salient points of 

 evidence. AVhen in some instances an adequate fauna was discovered, 

 the problem was promptly and conclusively settled, the flood of ink sud- 

 denly ceased to flow, and deej) calm settled over the controversy. 



The fundamental progress achieved appears, therefore, to be measur- 

 able better in terms of collections than of researches. I do not altogether 

 agree with a distinguished Columbia professor who declared not long ago 

 that paleontologists had no business to reason on or draw conclusions 

 from their specimens, but should content themselves with describing and 

 illustrating them.^^ Xevertheless, I do think we should distinguish far 

 more sharply between provisional and tentative conclusions based on 

 scanty and fragmentary data and those which are really proven by ade- 

 Cjuate evidence. 



*' H. F. Osborn : (1918.) Equidse of the Oligocene. Miocene, and Pliocene. Amer. 

 Mus. Mem., n. s., vol. ii. pp. 1-217, pis. i-liii. 



*«W. B. Scott and W. J. Sinclair: (1903-1912.) Rep. Princ. Exped. Patagonia, vols, 

 iv-vi. 



*' A. H. Winge : (1915.) Jordfundne og nulevende Gumlere fra Lagoa Santa. E. 

 Museo Lundii, Kjobenhavn, 1915. 



** O. Abel: (1909.) Ban und Geschichte der Erde ; Das Zeitalter der Reptilien here- 

 schaft, Vienna ; 1912, Grundziige der Palseobiologie der Wirbeltbiere. Schweitzerbart. 

 Stuttgart : 1914, Die Vorzeitlichen Saiigethiere. Fischer, Jena : 1919. Die Stamme der 

 Wirbelthiere, Ver. wiss. Verleger, Berlin-Leipzig ; 1920, Lehrbuch der Palaeozoulogie. 

 Fischer, Jena ; Methoden der palaobiol. Forschung Urb. u. Schwarzenberg, Berlin-Wien : 

 1922, Lebensbilder aus der Tierwelt der Vorzeit, Fischer, Jena. 



^'^ T. H. Morgan: (1916.) A critique of the theory of evolution, pp. 24-27. 



