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49S 



great labour and sometimes at the risk of his scalp. Pro- 

 fessor Marsh told me how he took him to the University, 

 and proposed to begin by showing him over the buildings. 

 He refused. " Show me what you have got inside them ; 

 I can see plenty of bricks and mortar in my own country." 

 So they went straight to the fossils, and as Professor Marsh 

 writes : — * 



One of Huxley's lectures in New York was to be on the 

 genealogy of the horse, a subject which he had already written 

 about, based entirely upon European specimens. My own ex- 

 plorations had led me to conclusions quite different from his, 

 and my specimens seemed to me to prove conclusively that the 

 horse originated in the New World and not in the Old, and that 

 its genealogy must be worked out here. With some hesitation, 

 I laid the whole matter frankly before Huxley, and he spent 

 nearly two days going over my specimens with me, and testing 

 each point I made. 



At each inquiry, whether he had a specimen to illustrate 

 such and such a point or exemplify a transition from earlier 

 and less specialised forms to later and more specialised ones, 

 Professor Marsh would simply turn to his assistant and bid 

 him fetch box number so and so, until Huxley turned upon 

 him and said, " I believe you are a magician ; whatever I 

 want, you just conjure it up." 



The upshot of this examination was that he recast a 

 great part of what he meant to say at New York. When he 

 had seen the specimens, and thoroughly weighed their im- 

 port, continues Professor. Marsh — 



He then informed me that all this was new to him, and that 

 my facts demonstrated the evolution of the horse beyond ques- 

 tion, and for the first time indicated the direct line of descent 

 of an existing animal. With the generosity of true greatness, 

 he gave up his own opinions in the face of new truth, and took 

 my conclusions as the basis of his famous New York lecture 

 on the horse. He urged me to prepare without delay a volume 

 on the genealogy of the horse, based upon the specimens I had 

 shown him. This I promised, but other work and new duties 

 have thus far prevented. 



* American Journal of Science, vol. 1. August 1895. 



