The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-05-04

The remains Of fossil horses are found
b almost all portions Of the world to
such an extent that the geographical
distribution of these animals must have
been almost universal at certain geo
graphical epochs. The history of the
domesticatiOn of the horse is now
pushed back into ages of antiquity once
deemed fabulous; the Aryans, accord
ing to tie scientist Petermest, had
tanned the horse some $4,000 years be-
fore Christ; and Zaborowski, in his re-
marksble essay upon 1.-THE Migration
of Animals" states that the Chinese or
their ancestors had learned to train the
horse no less than 1900 years before
our era.
But geology has traced back the his
tory Of the horse much further; in
fact, beyond the period ut which the
horse assumed its present form and into
ages during which it had a totally diff
ferent shape and q five-toed foot in lieu
of the single hoof. There is no miss
ing link in the evolutional history Of
the animal back to the eocene strata.
The horse dates back from the period
Of the tertiary epoch. During the quar-.
ternary era it is supposed that almost
the entire surface of the globe was one
vast grazing ground; otherwise it were
impossible to conceive how such enor-
nous herds of horses and herbivorous
creatures as must have existed, accord
ing to archaeological testimony, could
have procured nourishment. 1t is q
fact worth noting that, while the geo.
logical history of the horse ends in the
old world at the miocene formations
or second formations of the tertiary
epoch, it can be traced back much fur
therby the remains of American fossil
horses, to the Oldest eocene beds.
This earliest form of the horse has
been termed the eohippus. 1t had four
complete toes on the fore feet, and five
the fifth in rudimentary form-upon the
hind feet. In later eOcene strata we
find the orohippus, with four fingers OF
toes upon the fore feet and only three
upon the hind feet, while the fibula and
ulna-mere rudiments in the modern
horse-were fully developed. Then
comes the mesohippus from the Ameri-
can miocene beds-formed much like
its predecessor, except that the fourth
toe of the hind feet is rudiment.
From this point the history of the horse
can be continued upward in either hemi-
sphere.
The miohippus succeeded the meso-
hippus; the rudiment of the fourth toe
is still more rudimentary. In the pro-
tohippus, which comes after, there are
only three toes on the hind and fore
feet. In the pliohippus-horse of the
pliocene fOrmation-which follows, the
outer two of the three toes, on hind and
fore feet alike, have changed into splint
bones, standing out at angles from the
leg. These were more developed than
in the modern horse, and are supposed
to have served to prevent the hoof from
sinking deep into marshy ground. The
pliohippus otherwise much resembled
our modern horse, but was smaller.
The little ancestor of the horse called
in Europe hipparion corresponds to
our American protohippus; and the
European anchitherium to our Amer
lean miohippus. Kecapitulating back
ward, the geological history of the
horse in America is represented by this
little table:
Horse, quarternary.
P P1lSal6RR@si PnOcene.
MesohippGs, Miocene.
GGGGRhilPPss' Eocene.
The youngest Of the fossil horses,
therefore, belong to the quarternary OF
recent deposits, and the teeth found at
the Avery salt mine belong to the race
which had disappeared so long before
the coming of the Spaniards that the
American aborigines were terrified by
the mere sight Of the horses which the
conquerers had brought with them
N. o. IImes-Democrdt