THE 
AMERICAN GEOLOGIST, 
Vol. XXII. AUGUST, 1898. No. 2 
REMAINS OF A SPECIES OF BOS IN THE 
QUATERNARY OF ARIZONA. 
By William P. Blake, Tucson, Arizona, and Mill Rock, New Haven, Ct. 
The plains and valleys of Arizona in ancient Quaternary 
time were the feeding ground of a species of Bos, now extinct. 
This is shown by the discovery of fossil horn-cores of gigantic 
size, and well preserved in the ancient cemented gold-bearing 
gravels at Greaterville on the eastern side of the Santa Rita 
mountains in Pima county, about thirty miles southeast of the 
city of Tucson. They were exhumed by the sharp pick of one 
of the placer miners, Mr. P. J. Coyne, to whom and to Mr. 
Thos. Deering, of Greaterville, we are indebted for the preser- 
vation of the fragments and their presentation to the museum 
of the University of Arizona. From these fragments I was 
able to reconstruct nearly the whole of one core, and the great- 
er part of the other. The outer portions of these bones are 
stained by oxide of iron, and portions of the cemented gravel 
and sand adhere in places to the surface. 
These horn-cores are very much larger and heavier than 
any known to us amongst horned cattle, or Bos taurus of the 
present time. They are nearly twice as large as the horn- 
cores of largest size of our domestic bulls. It is evident 
that the animals must have had a very large skull and great 
strength of neck to support and make use of such ponderous 
horns. 
