Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 4.djvu/494

478 another, a Calamagras, was the size of our water-snake; while another, of the same genus, was about as large as a garter-snake. Of these ophidians, all the species and three of the genera are new to science. One thing is observable in Nature—the provision made for sustaining the proper balance, by keeping in check that which might become in excess. It is plain that the moles were very numerous. But these and their congeners were not relished by the mammalian carnivores. The bad smell of the shrew prevents the cat from eating it. Probably the snakes were less dainty, and herein, perhaps, lay their utility in the animal economy. It might seem that Prof. Cope had assigned to the ophidia a similar task, as he names one species Aphelopis talpivorus, which simply means the mole-eating Aphelopis.

The Lacertilia, or lizards, furnish some interesting traits. Prof. Cope gives six characteristically separated genera, and all are new. Exostinus and Peltosaurus were lizards with bony shields, and symmetrical bony tubercles on the head. Here comes in an interesting fact for science, namely, that this is the first time that the ophidia and lizards have been found in the Miocene strata of America.

The turtles are represented by several species, which, although new, present no features of popular interest.

We will now give some facts pertaining to this work of the Geologists in the Territories.

There were really three expeditions made last summer, one to the "Bad Lands" of Colorado, one to the "Bad Lands" of Wyoming, and the third to the Cretaceous formation of Kansas.

As respects the "Bad Lands" of Colorado: three distinct geological formations were found superimposed, or lying in sequence. First, at the base was a series of strata containing fossil wood. This was Cretaceous, and was known as the "Lignite Division." Next came Strata known as the "White River Division." This was Miocene. The next was the "Loup Fork Division," and this was Pliocene. Of course, speaking geologically, this was top of all.

In the Pliocene the fossils found were twenty-four species, of which ten were new to science. They embraced four carnivora, one proboscidian, a mammoth, seventeen ungulates, of which two were great camels. With these ungulates were a number of Pliocene horses. Two interesting facts were obtained: one, that all the horses had three toes to one foot, and the other that the camels had full sets of incisor teeth in both jaws. In this formation was found the large rhinoceros, Aphelops.

From the Miocene were obtained: rodents, eighteen species; insectivora, eleven; carnivora, ten; perissodactyles, twenty; artiodactyles, twenty—thus making forty ungulates; quadrumana, one; lacertilia, or lizards, seven; ophidia, five; turtles, five. Probably the following may be set down as the chief results growing out of the