The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1874-10-22
RECENT SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES.
Results Of the LabOrs of the wheeler
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES of the Man,
moth and MastOdOn.

Results Of the Labors of the Wheeler
ExpeditiOn-Skelet of the Man,
moth and MastOdOn.
The Denver Nel1s of a recent date says /:
Some of the results accomplished, and in
the process of accomplishment, by the
Wheeler expedition, during its present
campaign in the interests of science, are
of character to be appreciated by the sci
entists abroad as well as at home, and
to exercise material change in more than
one branch of knowledge, as at present
constituted.
Last year, it will be remembered, Prof.
Cope, the paleontologist, set the scientific
world on fire by the discovery of an "ele-
plants graveyard" containing the bones
of mammOths, and the extinct elephantine
genera that flOurished thousands of years
before the days of Adam; and this year
again he is likely to cause similar mum
dane conflagration by an even more ex-
tensive discovery of the same sort. He, in
conjunction with his conscientious cOad-
tutor, DIR. Yarrow, has unearthed, i'll the
valley of the San Juan, large number of
vertebrates of enormous size, some of
which are entirely new to science, and
those that are not, of a very rare and COM
paratively unknown species. Among them
are several very perfect skeletons of the
mastOdon race, and very large variety of
mammoths cousin-German to that cle-
phant of the past. The discovery has not
yet been arranged and classified, so that a
complete list of the different specimens
embraced in it cannot be given, but this
work, already, is in progress, number of
the specimens having been forwarded to
Washington soon after their discovery,
where competent persons at once set to
work upon them, and DR.. Yarrow left for
the East Monday with large proportion
of the remainder in tow.
Besides the very valuable variety of YER
tebrates, as many as a hundred additions
to the known list of invertebrates have
been made, while also large number of
"old friends with new faces" have been
found; in other words, familiar specimens
have been re-discOvered in entirely new
formations. The effect of this latter will
he to revolutioniZe many of the conjec-
lures of science, not only as to the age of
the animals in question, but also as to that
of the formations they are found in. The
entire discovery, taken as whole, Lieut..
Wheeler regards as the most valuable con-
tribution to paleontOlOgy made since that
study became a branch of scientific re-
search.
The natural division of the survey under
DR.. Rothrock, the well-known botanist,
has also achieved substantial successes. An
immense number of specimens of man.
mails, reptiles and fishes, and as many as
1000 birdskins, some of them new varie
ties. were obtained. OF the fishes, five
of the specimens discovered are entirely
new.
But the work that is perhaps the most
interesting to the people of the territory
was prosecuted by DR.. LOew, chemist in
ordinary to Lieut.. Wheeler, who has
analyZed the waters of all the thermal and
mineral springs in the regions traversed
by the survey, and when their properties
are made public, as they soon will be, and
the invalids whom they are calculated to
benefit will not be taking a leap in the
dark in coming to Colorado, the advan-
tages that will accrue to the territory are
manifest. Colorado is now not much
more than suspected to be the sanitarium
of the world DIR. LOew will, in all pro
liability, before long cOnclusively prove IL
to be such. This indefatigable chemist
has, too, analyZed the soils of the different
formations found in the southern part OF
the territory, in Northern New Mexico
and Eastern Arizona, and from this valu-
able results are expected. He has be-
sides collected a quantity of plants, many
of which will be used in the economic arts,
and Colorado as the repository of these
can claim another addition to her already
unparalleled resources of different kinds.
The expedition has also succeeded in
carving out the work of triangulatiOn
begun in 1873, and, as a result, carefully
prepared and accurate map of portions OF
Colorado and contiguous territories to the
Iyt,nHrrI1 only tn nrOGnpQtnrS
and that indifferently. will before long be
issued by the War Department. In the
prosecution of this work the surveyors, by
special orders of Lieut.. Wheeler, have
been on the lookout for feasible passes in
the mountains for the transportation of
army supplies across the main range, and
Lieut.. Marshall's discovery of pass sec
Ond only to the COOchetOpe and Tennes-
see. as chrOnicled in Tuesdays Ne,1s, is
proof of how faithfully their endeavors
have been carried out.
Incidental to the scientific discoveries of
the survey, has been the finding OF the
traces in New Mexico of a stOckadc erect
ed by Capt. Pike, an explorer sent out by
the Government to survey the then more
than unknown western wilds, in the early
part of the present century, to protect
himself and his command against the
Mexicans. The stOckade proved of small
service, however, and the entire command
was captured and carried prisoners to
Mexico. They were afterwards released,
but the records made of their progress in
exploring the country were never recov-
cred. A peg, too, inscribed with Pixies
name, and dated 1907, was found in the
Sangre de Cristo valley, near small
creek emptyiRg into the Rio Grande.