Lull — Development of Vertebrate Paleontology. 11*9 



trict and are the sediments of an ancient Tertiary lake, a 

 relic of which, Birket-el-Qurun, yet remains. These beds 

 contained ancient Hyracoidea, Sirenia, and Zeuglodontia, 

 but above all, ancestral Proboscidea which, together with 

 those known elsewhere, enabled Andrews to demonstrate 

 the origin and evolutionary features of this most remark- 

 able group of beasts. This discovery in the Fayum lends 

 color to the belief that Africa may have been the ancestral 

 home of at least five of the mammalian orders, those men- 

 tioned above, together with the Embrithopoda, a group 

 unknown elsewhere. This theory had been advanced 

 independently by Tullberg, Stehlin, and Osborn, before 

 the discovery in Egypt. 



Another European worker of pre-eminence who wrote 

 more broadly than the faunal studies mentioned above 

 was W. Kowalewsky. He discussed especially the evo- 

 lutionary changes of feet and teeth in ungulates, a line of 

 research afterward developed in greater detail by the 

 Americans, Cope and Osborn. 



South America has yielded series of rich faunas which 

 have been exploited by the great Argentinian, Florentino 

 Ameghino, and by the Europeans, Owen, Gervais, Hux- 

 ley, Von Meyer, and more recently by Burmeister and 

 Lydekker. Later exploration and research by Hatcher 

 and Scott of North America will be discussed further on 

 in this paper. 



Vertebrate Paleontology in America. 



Early Writers. — Having thus summarized paleontolog- 

 ical progress in the Old World, we can turn to a consid- 

 eration of the work done in the New, especially in the 

 United States, because while the Old World investigation 

 has been invaluable, a science of vertebrate paleontology, 

 very complete both as to its zoological and geological 

 scope and in the extent and value of published results, 

 could be built exclusively upon the discoveries and 

 researches made by Americans. The science of verte- 

 brate paleontology may be said to have had its beginnings 

 in North America with the activities of Thomas Jeffer- 

 son, who, like Franklin, felt so strong an interest in 

 scientific pursuits that even the graver duties of the high- 

 est office in the gift of the American people could not 

 deter him from them. When in 1797 Jefferson came to 



