Identifier: geology00cham (find matches)
Title: Geology
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Chamberlin, Thomas C. (Thomas Chrowder), 1843-1928 Salisbury, Rollin D., 1859- joint author
Subjects: Geology
Publisher: New York, H. Holt and co.
Contributing Library: Internet Archive
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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Europe. An interpretation of their general appearance byKnight is shown in Fig. 440. The Protoceras was remotely related to the deer family, and wasprofusely and strangely horned, as though in diminutive mimicry ofthe Dinocerata. There was, in the male, a blunt pair of protuberancesbetween the ears, a pair of basal cores between the eyes, and two largeprominences on the nose. The skull was only eight inches long, andthe animal about the size of a sheep. It was North American (White 256 GEOLOGY River) so far as known, and may be regarded as foreshadowing thedeer (Cervidce). Being a highly specialized form, it had a short career,as specialized forms usually do. In a similar way the ruminants seem to have been introduced orforeshadowed by the TraguUdce, the chevrotains, which arc now repre-sented in Farther Asia by a slender little1 ruminant, isolated andscarcely known, the Tragulus, the scarcely altered survivor of agreat tribe which nourished abundantly in Europe, and less so in North
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Fig. 441.—Skull of a Protoceras-Y.Ve animal (Syndyoccras cooH Barbour), recentlydiscovered in the Loup Fork beds of Nebraska. (Photo, by Barbour.) America, before the typical and fully differentiated ruminants had madetheir appearance. * The oreodons were small animals, never exceeding the size of alarge dog, and are interesting chiefly as a primitive form that lived onfrom the Eocene with little change, while its contemporaries were eitherrising to climaxes and disappearing, or were evolving into modern andmore lasting forms. They seem to have been exclusively North Ameri-can, and lived on till the late Miocene. 1 A. Smith Woodward, Vert. Pal., p. 360. THE EOCENE PERIOD. 257 The marine life.—If the Vicksburg formation be regarded as Oligo-cene, the general aspect of the Eocene sea life must be regarded as con-tinuing into that period. Foraminiferal deposits (of Orbitoides in partic-ular) are a notable feature, corresponding in phase with the nummuliticformations of the late Eocen

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