18 



THE HOKSE 



dence is in such cases, however, of little value, as may- 

 be judged from the fact that it is only within a very- 

 few years that the existence of these American deposits 

 teeming with fossil remains of previously unsuspected 

 forms of life has been brought to light. How do we 

 not know that the next ten or twenty years may not be 

 equally fruitful in new discovery ? 



After giving a summary of what was then known 

 of the ancestry of the horse, as disclosed by patoonto- 

 logical evidence, Professor Huxley wrote in 1877 : 1 

 £ The knowledge we now possess justifies us com- 

 pletely in the anticipation that when the still lower 

 Eocene deposits and those which belong to the creta- 

 ceous epoch have yielded up their remains of ancestral 

 equine animals, we shall find, first, a form with four 

 complete toes and a rudiment of the innermost or first 

 digit in front, with probably a rudiment of the fifth 

 digit in the hind foot ; while in still older forms, the 

 series of the digits will be more and more complete, 

 until we come to the five-toed animals, in which, if the 

 doctrine of evolution is well founded, the whole series 

 must have taken origin.' 



This anticipation has been completely verified by 

 the discovery, among others, of Phenacodus in the 

 Wasatch beds, which there is every reason to believe 



1 American Addresses: Lectures on Evolution, p. 89. 



