1895.] Is Daemonelix a Burrow ? 527 
and as I believe is impossible. However, if it is a possible 
case then it brings us to another condition; sedimentation 
must have gone on indefinitely long, the bones of the large 
animal were buried and covered by unknown feet of superim- 
posed sediments, then the ancient lake was drained, erosion 
went on for an indefinite period cutting the surface into its 
present hills and valleys. 
_ All this brings us then from Miocene to recent DA for it 
wasin recent time, according to this, that the gopher must 
have dug his burrow through the bones of this old-time Artio- 
dactyle. But it must be borne in mind in this connection that 
all these burrows are fossilized at the present time, and that 
the sand in which they occur is sandrock at the present time 
and must have been sandrock before the gopher dwelt there. 
Can we believe that a gopher could excavate a burrow in 
rock too hard, often, even for our-chisels and picks? Or has 
there been time for the fossilization of its burrow and bones on 
this supposition ? 
With the specimen in hand, grown over as it is with an or- 
ganic network of tubules, the author can not believe that it can 
be accounted for in any other way than that already proposed ; 
viz., that some organism quietly grew around these bones, 
conforming to their very shape and knitting them all together. 
-. In still another case we found a small united radius and 
ulna in the matrix, on top of, and outside of, the root-stalk, 
just as if it had been deposited there as sedimentation went on 
One would naturally look for such bones within, not without 
the burrow; and on the bottom, not on the top. 
The author would not be misunderstood in this reply. 
He does not deny the possibility of this being an old-time 
burrow, for such it may yet prove to be despite his fondest 
hopes and his avowed convictions to the contrary, and despite 
the very plant structure itself. But he does attempt to deny 
that the Bad Lands are Loess of æolian origin; that the tubes 
in Daemonelix are Loess tubes; that the tubules and plant 
cells are those of hay; and that any gopher, Miocene or 
modern, could possibly construct in fine sand a straight bur- 
row inside a spiral burrow which could stand. 
University of Nebraska, Dec. Ist, 1894. 
