I 
38 W. J. MARTIN. 
And probably Equus Fari'ilis , or Equus Cabballus , may have 
existed in the extreme northwest part of the continent, exend¬ 
ing from Asia. One of the strange facts in connection with the 
history of the horse, is their becoming extinct in the new 
world, and at a period long anterior to the coming of Colum¬ 
bus, as at that time the Indians had not the remotest tradition 
concerning him. I have spent many years in investigating the 
works and mounds of the Monnd Builders, a race of mankind 
who long antedated the Indians, and from the innumerable 
numder of bones of nearly all kinds of animals fonnd in their 
mounds, I have not been able to discover a single one per¬ 
taining to the horse. So that the horse must have disappeared 
from this country at a remote time indeed. Why they should 
have become extinct, and upon their reintroduction from Europe 
multiply with such great rapidity, is one of the problems that 
natural science has not as yet succeeded in unraveling. In 
Europe, during the Glacial and even the Preglacial period, 
countless herds of horses roamed over the land, and the half¬ 
savage man of that period had not yet domesticated them, but 
they furnished one of his main articles of diet, fot there has 
been found in the lone caverns of that country horse remains 
along with those of the mommoth, cave bear, hyena, and even 
man himself. I have seen the right metacarpus of a horse 
taken from a cave at Dordogne, France, which closely resem¬ 
bled the present horse, only the bones were very small, and 
you may judge of the age of those bones when it was estimated 
that they belonged to the Glacial period. In conclusion, I will 
say a few words in regard to the 
DOMESTICATION OF THE HORSE. 
The horse, from an archaeological point of view, is compar¬ 
atively a recent servant of man. That he was not used by man 
as a beat of burden during the older and newer Stone Ages 
seems certain, and it was not before the Age *of Bronze that 
man brought this animal under subjection. That the horse 
existed in Europe and Asia from a remote period of time seems 
