THREE MILLION YEARS AGO.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 29 September 1926, Page 3

THREE MILLION YEARS AGO.

CENTRAL ASIAN FOSSILS. The American scientific- expedition which has been working for several years in the dried-up Gobi desert, in Central Asia, has made rich discoveries of pre-historic fossils. Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews, the leader, is writing the story of the expedition in The World To-day. In the July number he tells of a skull which could . not. be classified. “Its owner had lived in this region three or four million years ago, and must have been 'a nightmare creature. Two thick bony hbrn-crores, about 18 inches long by 6 inches in circumference, projected up and forward from just before the eyes. The horns swelled at the ends like clubs, and probably were covered with skin, as are those of the giraffe. . . It is very seldom now that one can find a mammal which cannot readily be classified, but Louck’s discovery is utterly unlike any -previously-known creature as far as our experience goes. The specimen was in very bad condition. The bone literally was in powder, and could be blown away. Granger soaked it first with gum ara.bic, which cemented the minute particles together;''then he strippled on Japanese rice paper, and when this had dried he was able to expose a little more of the bone, and repeat the operation. Eventually it was bandaged with strips of burlap soaked in flour paste, which formed a hard shell.” Dr. Andrews describes the excitement of watching an excavation. “Just the tip of a great bene was exposed, and, as Granger worked away the surrounding matrix, it proved to be the occipital part of a. skull. It was so large that at first we supposed at to be another Baiuchitherium, but as the excavation proceeded it became evident that what we had was a Titanothere. These huge beasts, which superficially resembled a rhinoceros, were known only from America until we discovered them in Mongolia. Our first and second years of work had produced very early primitive types, but this was a, much later and larger form, representing the very summit of their evolution. In America the corresponding species had an enormous forked horn on the -nose. In this specimen the nasal region was gone, but' the teeth and other parts of the skull told the story almost as completely as though every bone was present.” 'in a tomb at least a thousand years old, under a heap of stones orotecting timbers beautifully preserved, was found the skeleton of a* man about sft. lOin. tall, with a quiver of iron arrows by liis side. The most interesting point' in this discovery was that the man lay with his head on a saddle identical almost in pattern with those used in the United States Army to-day, and different from any other kind of Mongol saddle known. The' expedition still hopes to discover a fossil of the five-toed ancestor of the horse,- the existence of which in Asia, is inferred, though it has not yet been found. The earliest ancestor of the horse- so far has four toes.