The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-10-11
PREHISTORIC HORSES.
An Interesting Discovery That Was Recently
Made.

The school-boy that reaches the important
time for his ir>t literary effort-an essay or
mpOsition-iS pretty sure to end his worry
over the subject by selecting that noble
animal, the horse" Probably it would
puzzle professor of psychology to explain
why this is so. Whatever the cause of the
selection may be, however, it is certain that
it would take many days output of a big
mill to duplicate the enormous stacks of
paper that have been consumed in youthful
wrestles with the st lndard and well-worn
essay subject.
When the horse essay is pretentiOus
enough to deal with the history of the
animal We are pretty sure to be told that
CorteZ and PiZarrO introduced the horse in
America, says the Times of Philadelphia.
But they didn't There were horses in
America before the present Spain had an
inhabitant more civilized than the wild
men of BorneO. There were horses in the
State Of Pennsylvania, for instance, before
these great granite powders that you often
see came down from the far north in the
midst OF the awful ice avalanche that COW
cred the greater part Of the northern hemIS-
phere of the earth.
1t has long been thought by eminentnatu-
raliSts that the horse genus originated in
North America. Remains have been dis
covered which make it certain that the ani-
NAL existed here before the glacial period,
and it is reasonably certain that migrated
from here to South America. When Darwin
visited South America, sixty years ago. he
found evidrDce of rehistoric horses there.
In bis journal he says: In the pamp5ean
deposit | found the ossrOus armOr of a 81
gantic armadllo-like animal, the inside OF
which, when the earth was removed |, was
like great caldron. l found also the teeth
of the tOXOdOn and maStodnn, and one tooth
of 4 horse, in the same stained aud decayed
state. Tins latter tooth greatly interested
me- and took scrupulous care In ascertain
ing that it had been imbedded contempt
raneously with the other animals"
In subsequently, writing OF his discovery,
DarWin makes alIusiOn to similar remains
in North America, and remarks upon the
marvel that the native horse should have
lived and disappeared in America, to be
succeeded in after ages by the countless
herds descended from the few introduced
with the Spanish cOlonists.'
But the most Interesting discovery OF all
relative TO the prehistoric horse Of America
has very recently come 10 public notice. At
the meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement Of Science. held In
Washington n few weeks age, the whole
skull of a preglscial North American horse
was exhibited. More important still, this
skull was found imbedded with human I'M
pements, showing cOncluSiyey that both
man and the horse lived right here where
we enjoy lie To-Day ages before the IdluLSSL
dawn Of civilization ID Euro {.
But even this is not all that the wonderful
skull in question tells US. The frontal bone
had been crushed in exactly as We see in
the case of animals slaughtered for food"
What does this imply? Simply that the
American of that remote age appreciated
the horse solely as an animal that was tit
10 eat he had no use for draught ami
nal, but like certain PariSianS of our day
he was a conuOisseQr Of horse flesh as an
article of diet
1t was pointed out in the exhibition of the
remarkable skull that the friable bones pro-
te ting he eye sockets were intact, as were
a $50 the ioHg nasal bones, and the fossil
teeth were so manifestly those of a horse
that ''it would be impossible for any one
to separate them from those Of the quagga
and zebra if the thee were all thrown to-
gethrr"
Among the evidences of human existence
found in the same stratum with the skull
was stone hammer, rudely fashioned by
the hand of man. Remember, too. that there
is no question about this geological
stratum's antedatiug that awful sweep of
ice that covered the whole continent as far
southwark at least as the Pennsylvania and
Maryland line, and which almost Overtopped
the highest mountain.
There is no use in repeating specuati0ns
as to what became of the ancient American
rather a mIsnOmer, though, to give them
the name of man who lived only AGO years
ago.. but what about the relatives of the
nurse that was served up in our country a Ia
Franchise ages and ages ago? There GER
tainly were no horses in either North OF
South America in the DAYS of Colum bus
Possibly the prehistoric horse and the hui
man lover of his flesh disappeared together,
and there is al least hope that later geOlOgi-
cal research may satisfactorily explain this
interesting problem.
The only reasonable solution now offered
for the disappearance of the primitive horse
is that he persisted in the glacial period.
This, however, does not 60 far enough. The
glacial advance did not come like the awful
flood that followed the breaking of the dam
at JOhnstown. 1t must have been ages.
possibly thousands of years, in reaching the
line where it stopped ia its southern sweep.
Would not the horse species have moved
southwark in advance of the ice mass?
AS before remarked, there is little but
speculation thus far in relation to the ex-
tinGtiun of the early American horse; but
the fact that conclusive evidence has been
found to prove that man and the horse lived
together in cur country ages before history
even dawned in the so-called Old World is
one Of the most interesting discoveries ever
made in the domain of paleontology.