DESCRIPTION OF VERTEBRATE REMAINS FROM PEACE CREEK, 



FLORIDA. 



BY PROF. JOSEPH LEIDY. 



The fossils which form the subjects of the present communication are 

 for the most part from Peace Creek, Florida. Some of them were obtained 

 by Mr. Joseph Willcox, who recently visited the locality accompanied by 

 Mr. William M. Meigs. The gentlemen were aided in their search by Mr. 

 T. S. Moorhead, manager of the Arcadia Phosphate Company, who has 

 since sent to Mr. Willcox additional specimens of interest. The fossils were 

 collected in Peace Creek, at Arcadia, from a sand-bar which is exposed when 

 the water is low. The bar is explored for so-called phosphates, which occur 

 in nodular masses, and are collected in large quantities for commercial pur- 

 poses. Mr. Moorhead informed Mr. Willcox that the source or main bed, 

 from which the materials of the bar are chiefly derived, extends for miles 

 along the shores of Peace Creek, and is about eight feet thick. Others of 

 the Peace Creek fossils were previously received by the writer for examina- 

 tion from the Smithsonian Institution. 



The fossils of Peace Creek, besides a number of mostly uncharacteristic 

 fragments of bones and other specimens undetermined, consist of the 

 following : 



1. Three well-preserved crowns of upper molar teeth, and fragments of 

 others of those of a Tapir, in no respect differing from those of the existing 

 Tapiriis amcricamis of South America. 



2. Teeth of Horses ; 13 upper molars, 7 lower molars, and 2 incisors, of 

 different individuals ranging in size and age. They indicate animals about 

 the size of ordinary varieties of the Domestic Horse, large and small, but 

 not so large as the largest variety of the living form. In several of the 

 upper molars, the worn triturating surface exhibits the characteristic enamel 

 islets with a somewhat more folded condition than is usual in the Domestic 

 Horse. It is very uncertain whether to regard these teeth in part or whole 

 as having pertained to an indigenous species of Eqinis, or to view them as 

 belonging to the Domestic Horse. 



Accompanying the teeth is an ungual phalan.N; having the same charac- 

 ter and size as the corresponding bone of the Domestic Hor.se. Another 



