100 



KY01A 7VO.V OF THE HORSE 



The geological age to which all the fossils shown in this ball belong, 

 covers a period of from 100,000 to :;,(>0(), ()(>() years. At each side of the 

 entrance are charts indicating the successive periods of time from the 

 Triassic to the Tertiary, and the animal life which pertained to each. 

 Careful guides and exhaustive cards of explanation, photographs, and 

 window transparencies combine to make the entire exhibit illuminative 

 and interesting. 



Restoration of Eohippus, the four-toed horse. This ancestor of the modern horse, scarcely larger 

 than the red fox, lived some three millions of years ago. It comes from the Lower Eocene of 

 Wyoming and New Mexico 



The particular feature of this hall is the wonderful series in the cases 

 by the entrance and in the first alcoves on the right showing the evolution 

 of the horse in nature. The Museum is justly proud of this 

 f V °tr? 10n collection. Not only is it the largest and finest series of 



jj orse fossil horse skeletons in the world, but it is larger than the 



combined collections of all other institutions, and it con- 

 tains the earliest known ancestors of the horse, the little four-toed Eohippus, 

 which was no bigger than a fox and on four toes scampered over Tertiary 

 rocks. As will be seen by an examination of the skeletons of the horse 

 and man in the Quaternary Hall, the modern horse walks on the tip of his 

 middle finger and toe. The front hoof bone corresponds to the last joint 

 of the third finger in the human hand, and the other bones of the leg corre- 

 spond bone for bone with the structure of the finger, wrist and arm of man. 

 In the modern horse the remaining fingers or toes of the fore and hind foot 





