FOSSIL HORSES IN NORTH AMERICA.

Although no wild horses were found in this
country when first discovered, yet the investigations of geologists have shown that the continent
has not always been destitute of this interesting and useful animal. Wild horses in great variety and perhaps in great numbers, once roamed over Mexico and the valleys on either side of
the Rocky mountains.

Already seventeen varieties of fossil horses
have been described. The smallest one of these
is thus briefly mentioned by Professor O. C.
Marsh, of Yale College:

"The remains were collected at Antelope Station, on the Union Pacific Railroad, about 450
miles west of Omaha, where a few weeks before,
during the excavation of a well, they had been
thrown out from a depth of sixty-eight feet.
They indicate an equine animal, scarcely more
than two feet, or possibly two and one-half feet
in height, although full grown, as the ossification of the various bones clearly proves."

A pony not taller than a common table, would
do very well for a race of Aztecs, Tom Thumbs,
Commodore Nutts, or other Lilliputians, but they
would make but little headway in moving a
plow to turn over the prairie sod. W. J. B.