1 877 .] Scientific Notes, 565 
“ It has been named patviofelis ulta, which signifies the ancestral cat that 
hath revenged itself.” How it has avenged itself, or upon whom or where- 
fore, we do not learn. Still more remarkable is the Hycenodon , three species 
of which have been discovered in the Lower Miocene tertiaries of White 
River. In their anatomical character they approach at once the wolf, the tiger, 
the hyaena, the weasel, the racoon, and the opossum. Hycenodon horridus, 
three imperfect skulls of which have been found, was doubtless the most 
formidable carnivorous land animal of its time. Another of these missing 
links or intermediate forms is Dr. Leidy’s “ ruminant hog.” Like the tame 
swine it was provided with incisors and canines, but its molars were con- 
structed upon the pattern of living ruminants. They were four-toed, and 
unprovided with horns. The former development of the camel and of the 
horse tribe in America is most remarkable. The only camel-like animals at 
present existing in the western hemisphere are the llama and its congeners, in 
the mountainous parts of South America ; yet in the valleys of the Niobrara 
and the Loup Fork are found the fossil remains of a number of species of 
extindt camels, one of which was of the size of the Arabian camel, a second 
about two-thirds as large, and a third smaller. In like manner no horses 
existed in America prior to its discovery by Columbus; yet Dr. Leidy reports 
twenty-seven species of Equidce which lived on this continent prior to the 
advent of man, “ about three times as many as are now found living through- 
out the world.” Among the Pachydermata were a true hog as large as the 
African hippopotamus, five species of rhinoceros, a mastodon, and a large 
elephant not as yet discovered in any other part of the world. The author is 
inclined to infer, from the totality of the phenomena observed, that the 
Western continent is the original home of animal life, and instead of being 
the “ New World ” is older than the land in the Eastern hemisphere. The 
fossils found are remarkable for their beauty and perfection, and cannot have 
been transported from a distance or exposed to the action of turbulent waters, 
as they “ seldom show any signs of having been water-worn, and the sharp 
points and angles are as perfect as in life.” Turning from fossilised to living 
beings, we find an elaborate and interesting account of the Caloptenus spretus, 
or hateful grasshopper— a scourge in its native haunts, at least, more formid- 
able even than the Colorado beetle, but fortunately less able to accommodate 
itself to differences of climate, elevation, and soil. Did space allow we might 
go on almost indefinitely multiplying interesting extracts from this volume. 
One defect in the getting up of the work we must beg to point out : — In many 
scientific books the heading to each page is a key to the subjeCt-matter below. 
In others the heading of the right-hand page alone serves as a running table 
of contents, whilst that of the left-hand page merely repeats in brief the title 
of the book ; but in the volume before us each page is merely headed 
“ Geological Survey of the Territories,” which makes it difficult to find any 
particular passage of which the reader is in quest. 
No. 3 of vol. iii. of the “ Bulletin of the United States Geological and 
Geographical Survey of the Territories ” contains articles on the comparative 
vocabulary of the Utah dialeCts ; on the method of making stone weapons ; 
on a peculiar type of eruptive mountains in Colorado ; notes on the geology of 
the region of the Judith river, Montana, and on vertebrate fossils found near 
the Missouri : with a series of palaeontological papers referring chiefly to 
Unionidae, Physidae, and other Mollusca. Among the fossils from the Judith 
river are a number of the bones of a large Deinosaurian reptile which show 
not merely Avian but also Mammalian affinities, such as the great coronoid 
process of the dentary bone, which is a feature unknown among birds and 
reptiles. 
The “ Miscellaneous Publications ” include “ Lists of Elevations, princi- 
pally in that portion of the United States West of the Mississippi River.” 
The number of summits in the Rocky Mountains ranging from 12,000 to 
14,000 feet above the sea-level is remarkable, but greater heights are rarely 
attained. The loftiest peaks are Mount St. Elias, in Alaska, variously stated 
at from 16,938 to 19,500 feet above the sea-level, and Mount Cook, also in 
Alaska, 16,000 feet. 
