NOTES AND LITERATURE 



SOME RECENT ADVANCES IN VERTEBRATE 

 PALEONTOLOGY. II. 



Waldemar Lindgren in a discussion of ' ' The Tertiary Gravels 

 of the Sierra Nevada of California," 11 gives (p. 51) a brief review 

 of the history of fossil mammals of the auriferous gravels of Cali- 

 fornia. In this connection the author has touched on the age of the 

 famous "Calaveras skull," which some have thought indicated a 

 Tertiary age for man in California. The skull has in the past 

 provoked much discussion and it is interesting to have new light 

 brought forward. Mr. Lindgren, through his associate, Mr. J. 

 M. Boutwell, interviewed some of the older residents of the re- 

 gion in which the "Calaveras skull" was found. One resident 

 remembered the details of the "find" and stated to Mr. Boutwell 

 that the mine in which the skull was found had been "salted" 

 with the subsequently famous "Calaveras skull" as a practical 

 joke by one of the neighborhood humorists. "While this is not of 

 very definite evidence for the non-Tertiary age of the "Calaveras 

 skull" yet it fully sustains the important researches of Sinclair 

 and Holmes, who could find no good evidence for the skull being 

 other than that of the modern Indian. 



The Kansas University Science Bulletin issued during the past 

 summer contains three articles on fossil vertebrates. A new 

 species of Eryops (E. willistoni) and the history of the develop- 

 ment of our knowledge of the temnospondylous Amphibia is the 

 subject-matter of one of the papers. The earliest known temno- , 

 spondyle was described by Agassiz as a fish in 1777. The amphib- 

 ian nature of the fossil was not noted until 1847 when it was cor- 

 rectly defined by Goldfuss and later by Jaeger. A list of 58 

 species is given, nearly or quite all of which belong with the 

 Temnospondylia. The order Temnospondylia and the family 

 Eryopida? are defined and the geological range and geographical 

 distribution given. The new temnospondyle {Eryops willistoni) 

 is from the reputed Permian of Oklahoma. The species is quite 

 distinct and the characters are shown in six plates of drawings of 

 the skeletal remains. 



An armored Dinosaur (Stegopelta landerensis Williston) is 



11 Prof. Paper 73, U. S. Geol. Surv. 



248 



