The fact of the existence of fossil remains of the horse in America has been generally received with a good deal of incredulity, arising, perhaps, from the mere fact being stated of their having been found, often without even mentioning the associate fossils, and in all cases, previous to Mr. Owen,* without describing the specimen. At present their existence being fully confirmed, it is probably as much a wonder to naturalists as was the first sight of the horses of the Spaniards to the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, for it is very remarkable that the genus Equus should have so entirely passed away from the vast pastures of the western world, in after ages to be replaced by a foreign species to which the country has proved so well adapted; and it is impossible, in the present state of our knowledge, to conceive what could have been the circumstances which have been so universally destructive to the genus upon one continent, and so partial in its influence upon the other.

The remains are by no means unfrequent, and according to William Cooper, the author of a paper entitled "' Notices of Big-Bone Lick," in Featherstonhaugh's "Journal of Geology,"* the first printed notice of them occurs in Mitchell's "Catalogue of Organic Remains, upon referring to which, I find mentioned pp. 7, 8, that a cervical vertebra and teeth of the horse were found associated with the Mastodon, &c., in a tract extending from the base of the Neversink Hills to Bordentown, New Jersey. The author of "Notices, &c." also mentions the remains of the horse being found at Big-Bone Lick, but speaks doubtfully as to the authenticity of such remains having been found in a fossil state in this country, and says, p. 208, "I saw nothing in support of it myself, nor have I met with any person who could answer for such a fact from his own careful observation."

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