ARTIODACTYLA 163 



To begin with, I wish to refer to the splendid collections, especially of 

 the Artiodactyla, from the Uinta Eocene of Utah, brought together by 

 the American Museum of Natural History and Princeton University. 

 This carries us further back than ten years (1895-1899), but it is within 

 the scope of this paper, since the material in question opens up a vista of 

 much importance in connection with paleontology. It is from this Upper 

 Eocene horizon that we get the first glimpse of the true selenodont 

 Artiodactyla in North America, so ably presented in publications (Scott, 

 1899) by the eminent and worthy President of our Society and by Dr. 

 J. L. Wortman (1898). The fauna of the succeeding Tertiary formation 

 (Oligocene), which had previous to these years been comparatively well 

 known, was now carried back a great step in geologic time, and specula- 

 tions as to the origin of still earlier representatives of these North Amer- 

 ican Artiodactyls naturally arose. 



From this time on to the present a rapid succession of field explora- 

 tions, especially in the United States, was carried on in the years 1898- 

 1901 by the American Museum of Natural History, Princeton University, 

 and other institutions. In later years these institutions were Joined in 

 the field by Amherst, Carnegie Museum, Field Museum, Yale, and a 

 number of western institutions. Thus activity in our work has been on a 

 constant increase, and our knowledge has rapidly advanced from the 

 united labors of the different institutions in America and abroad. 



Though perhaps not bearing directly on the subject in hand, the monu- 

 mental and epochal work done at Princeton on the Santa Cruz fauna 

 from Patagonia furnishes food for some thought. In this vast collection 

 of fossils, including those gathered from time to time previously, there is 

 no sign of a true Artiodactyl or Perissodactyl. On the other hand, we 

 see the very remote ancestral relationship, for instance, between the Artio- 

 dactyla and Perissodactyla of the north and the Litopterna of the Santa 

 Cruz beds. It is also more solidly established (Scott, 1910, pages 105- 

 154) than before that Macrauchenia from the Pampean can no longer be 

 referred to the Tylopoda, as was originally done. 



In speaking of the recent paleontological discoveries in Africa, it must 

 be a considerable satisfaction to such men as Professors Osborn (1900, 

 pages 56-59), Stehlin (1900, pages 478-488), and Tullberg (1899, pages 

 485-495) to have their prophecies come to at least a partial realization so 

 soon after their studies (I refer to their arguments of an African home 

 in early geologic times for the various families discussed). Through the 

 energies of Schweinfurth and Dames, the original workers in this field, 

 and later through Beadnell, of the Geological Sun^ey of Egypt: Andrews, 

 of the British Museum; Fraas, of Stuttgart; Schlosser, of Munich; Os- 



