SOUTH DAKOTA SCHOOL OF MINES 23 



their ancestors, in turn transmitted to later individuals the 

 features best fitted to serve their purpose in the winning of 

 life's great race. One by one, group by group, they died, 

 the bodies of most of them quickly feeding the surrounding 

 elements but a chosen few, tucked away by the kindly hand 

 of nature, remaining as unique monuments of the dawning 

 time of the great mammalian races, are now being revealed 

 as gently by nature again in these the days of man. 



HISTORY OF EXPLORATION 



Our first knowledge of the White River badlands 

 worthy of record dates from 1847. Early in this year Dr. 

 Hiram A. Prout of St. Louis described in the American 



i 

 Figure 1 — Fragment of the lower jaw of a Titanothere, the first fossil 

 discovered in the Big Badlands. Described by Dr. H. A. Prout of 

 St. Louis, 1846-47. 



Journal of Science a fragment of the lower jaw of the great 

 Titanothere, he calling it a Paleotherium. A few months 

 later Dr. Joseph Leidy described in the Proceedings of the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia a fairly well 

 preserved head of what he termed a Poebrotherium. The 

 name implies belief in the ruminating nature of the animal 

 and later investigation, strange as it may seem, showed it to 

 be an ancestral camel. The two specimens referred to were 

 obtained from representatives of the American Fur Com- 

 pany. Their exact locality is not known but it is believed to 

 be somewhere between the present towns of Scenic and 

 Wall. 



