The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1874-05-21
The GenealOgy of the Horse.

\ correspondent of the New York TIi-
bthe who has visited Prof. o. G. Marsh of
New Haven. gives an account of re-
markable series of discoveries made by the
Professor which seem to indicate the an
ceStry of the horse and the gradual de
velopment of that animal from a remote
progenitor in distant geological eras. The
Tribune says edit0rially, i'll speaking of
the letter alluded to, which is too long for
us to publish entire:
The number of eminent men who in
this great conflict attack the various forms
of the development theory upon purely
scientific grounds is comparatively small,
and it suffered notable loss in the death
of Prof. AgaSsiZ. Perhaps the only Op-
ponent now left in America whom the
believers in evolution consider worthy of
their steel is Prof. Dawson of Montreal.
What Prof. AgassiZ might have done if
his life had been spared, can of course only
be matter of conjecture. We cannot re-
construct a statue as the anatOmiSt can a
skeleton, from a few fragments of bone;
and in what Prof. AgassiZ has left, there
is little more than the pedestal and per-
haps the feet of the image which he had in
mind. Yet it is well known that ardent
as was his opposition to the theories of
Darwin, his own belief as to the origin OF
man included the creation of several dis
tinct races, and was not compatible with
the usual formula of evangelical faith as
to the origin of the human species.
Under these circumstances it is inter
csting to know how Prof. Agassiz regard
ed these discoveries, in which Prof. Marsh
has had so large Il share. In a cOnversa-
ton with the great naturalist on PenikeSe
Island, last year, when the more COM
plete results of these researches were rs
yet dimly fOreshadOwed, he said, while
expressing his warm personal friendship
and admiration for Prof. Marsh: "He
seems to me like a man who has only one
page of a book before him. He has torn
out the leaf of the Tertiary formation, and
from it he would deduce the whole. The
book of Nature is too large to be learned
from fragment
Bearing this criticism in mind, it must
vet be admitted that the chain of argu-
ment in regard TO the genealOgy of the
horse is sUrikingly interesting. From the
lowest depths of strata mile in thickness
/ the remains are eXhumed of animals more
like horses than like any other living crea-
lures, but small in size, having four toes
to the fore feet and three to the hind, all
touching the ground. Higher up in the
formation are found larger animals, SINH
lar in other respects. but having only
three toes touching the ground, the mid
die one much enlarged. Still higher in
these deposits are similar three-tOed ami
mails. still larger, with only one toe reach
/ ing to the ground. Near the top of the
| formation not only does the likeness to the
modern horse grow apparent, but the dis
. tinctiOn becomes imperceptible. There
I ara al similar ch1pnpc in tlp head and
/ neck of these animals; they become grad
/ uallv elongated. The teeth and the jaw;
/ undergo successive changes, equally
marked. Admit the theory proposed, and
/ there is a ready explanation for most Of
these changes in the needs of the animal
/ for strength and tiectness in the struggle
for existence.
But after we have the whole story. some
/ strange and as yet tunanswerable questions
/ remain. The horse existed all over this
/ hemisphere. His fossil remains have beer
/ dug out of the cliffs of ESchOltZ's Bay, il
/ Alaska, and out of caves in Brazil, where
/ he was contemporary with the megatheri
um, and yet no trace of him is found IL
/ America coeval with man till the Spaniard:
brought him from Europe early in the
sixteenth century. Modern theories o.
geology do not admit the notion of vas
cataclysms by which the races of a cont
nent could be swept away; and thus the
utter disappearance of all equine forms
seems as vet almost ineXplicable. Bu
/ this is always a consequence of scientific
investigations; no sooner is one great diff
ficulty surmOunted than another and an
other is presented. To the student of IA
ture as well as to the poet, "Hills peel
DER hills, and alps on alps arise