The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-12-24
OREGON HORSE RESORT.
Remains of the Ancient Three-TOed
and TwO-TOed Animals Have Been

Found.
From the Portland Oregonian.
If you stampede a band of cayuses any
where in Central Eastern oregon, they
will run, unerringly, in the direction of the
South fork of the John Day river A no
madic Oregon, equine's itinerary is never
complete without at least one pilgrimage
to that point before death. If convenient,
he goes there to die. The steep slopes of
the bald hills in that region are strewn
/ with bones of thousands of his kind. If
| he dies elsewhere, his spirit visits the
| place, anyway. These things. for twenty
| years profound puzzles TO the people of
! this section, have been explained only af-
! ter science has taken the matter under
| consideration. 1t was left to Prof. Thomas
! Condor, state geologist for Oregon and one
! of the most learned and ardent paleontol-
ogisrs in the West. to make this discov
| cry. His hypothesis, based upon paleont-
! illogical finds Is plausible and weird APP
parently impossible, yet true. Briefly,
Prof Condor has demonstrated that the
region Immediately contiguous to the south
fork of the John Day river is horse heav-
en-.
1t has long been remarked by stockmen
of the John Day valley that the south
fork held some weird and wonderful at
! traction for horses The fact that it was
q region of scant grass, of steep hills, and
of vast wastes of metamorphosed rocks,
precluded the possibility of its attracting
| by virtue of any superiority as grazing
| ground. In the light of the etockmens
years of experience the matter was pc
| culiarly inexplicable. 1t is the natural be-
| lief of any one who has much to do with
| horses that the cayuse is a creature of
| appetite, whose rosiest equine aims and
ambitions do not mount higher than I'M
| limited oats and no harness; that given
! free rein ba uravifafag n for nd
! the feed box and that, allowed to roam
| the prairieS free and untrammeled, he ar
rives ultimately, with a regularity almost
astonishing, at the best accessible feeding
grounds. The stockman thoroughly I'M
| derstand perhaps, the materialistic side
of horses nature, but, obviously his
experience has never led him upon the
discovery that there is a spiritual side
as we'll
The South Fork of the John Day river
finds its source among the myriad canons
| and gullies of Bald Butte in Grant coun-
ty, thirty miles east by south of Canon
City, in Eastern Oregon. 1t is a noun
famous region, neither scenically, lovely
nor agrculturally possible. And yet 1t
presents one of the most interesting geo
graphical formations known to that alb
sorbing science. For here are found pa
| leozic fossils in such abundance as to
have attracted to the region some of the
most eminent scientists in America.
The first and most important excava-
tons were made by Prof. Condor in 1884.
| His researches extended over a period of
| four months, during which time he I'M
earthed fossils dating from the earliest
| ages known to geological science. His
most important find, however, was the fos-
sill remains of an extinct variety of three
toed horse, calculated TO have existed such
a number of years ago as to be beyond the
| counting.
| Toalaon tolooicaI discoveries in x,orio,,s
parts of the world have demonstrated ac-
ceptably that the horse is a prehistoric
animal, who had undergone peculiar
! changes since his original inception. His
evolution is traceable through successive
ages simply by his toes. Dating from his
creation with three, he has been tracked
through the million of years of his exist
! ence as a species simply by his evolu-
| tionary disturbance of those members. In
the neolithic age, after unnumbered centu-
Ties of life with three, he is discovered
with only two. To-day reduced in length
of hair, in strength of tooth, shorn of
shagginess, and fed on oats, he has but
one. The evolution of man, as compared
with the evolution of the horse, presents
this peculiar distinction-that while man
! has perfected in his fingers and toes, and
| has even increased in the number of the
| latter, during the progress of the ages, the
| horse has Travelled a different road and,
while not degenerating flor the latter-day
horse is nearly perfect he has lost his
toes. Whether it is a realization of this
saddening fact which impels the twentieth
! century cayuse to visit the graves of his
ancestors in the South Fork region can
only remain matter of conjecture. That
/ he does, however, is a most astounding
| fact.
Prof Condon's fossil horse was an eocene
relic, deposited some time during the dawn
of the existing order of things, In the ear
/ Hoe Ton ks,rx -tr 10 he har ofh &c
toed successor of the neolithic age have
also been found on the South Fork, relics
| of later era, the middle or miocene di.
vision of the tertiary period. The relics
of these small, shaggy, two-toed equines
are also frequently found in the pliocene
period of the tertiary deposits, which, al
though a few million years DID, is just
back OF the quarternary, or most
recent of periods. The South Fork region
abounds also in fossils of the cretaceous
deposits, which are the Oldest known to
geological science. Relics of more recent
age are in abundance as wen. The oc-
currence of these fossils in the South Fork
country in such correct chronological Sc
| quence, and the fact that they embrace
relics of all the well-defned ages, mark
| the region as particularly interesting to
paleontologists. 1t was this fact which
attracted Prof. Marsh of Yale, one of the
most eminent scientists in America who
brought to the region a corps of enthusl-
astic paleontologists, three years ago, and
who made many valuable finds, duly
chronicled in scientific publications in the
East Harvard and Princeton have also
dispatched expeditions the results of which
have prominent places in the museums of
those universities.
Prof. Condon's three-toed horse is now
in Yale. II is one Of the most valued fos-
sis ever found in the West.
A relic of hos elophantus columblanus,
or Columbia elephant found in the fossil
deposits of Hangmans creek In Idaho,
is another archaeological gem taken from
the Northwest. Bos has been articulated
and Is now in the Smithsonian Institution.
at Washington His hight is calculated
TO have been eighteen feet.
A scientific expedition from Harvard will
visit the South Fork region IN the spring.
Princeton also contemplates another visit.
That two horses, separated by millions
Of years. should have selected the South
Fork OF the John Day river as a dying
| ground and that their tOeless successors