NOTICE OF NEWLY DISCOVERED EURYPTERIDS IN NEBRASKA

A BED of Eurypterids has just been discovered by the Nebraska Geological Survey in the Carboniferous shales of southeastern Nebraska, and thus a new locality is added to the list for the United States. Such localities are somewhat rare, and notice of any and every new one must be acceptable. The Carboniferous outcrops are confined to some eight or ten counties in the extreme southeastern corner of the state, and though covered heavily by glacial clays, bold exposures occur in proximity to the bolder streams, especially the Missouri River. About a mile south of Peru, on the Missouri River front, the bluffs are limestones interbedded with thin layers of shale. But within a few hundred feet the shale thickens until the limestone pinches out altogether, and within as many feet the shale becomes increasingly arenaceous until it merges into a bed of massive cross-bedded sandstone. Within a mile this order is symmetrically reversed

THE MUSK-OXEN OF NEBRASKA

The remains of no less than eight fossil musk-oxen are already known in Nebraska, of which one is preserved in the Museum at Hastings, Nebraska, and seven in the State Museum at Lincoln. This is a large number to be recorded in anyone state. As late as 1891 authors wrote that but two examples of musk-oxen were known in the United States, one from Kentucky, and one from Arkansas, if, indeed, they be valid species. Now that pioneer days are well behind this commonwealth, and that there is a growing sentiment for exploration and proper display of the State\u27s resources, it is a safe assumption that many more will be found and recorded. That the remains of creatures so thoroughly boreal should be found far south of the arctic circle, their natural, barren, frigid, and rocky range, is ascribable to the great glacial age. These animals move~ southward with the vast, invading ice sheet, and followed it northward in its grand retreat. They frequented the borders of the great ice fields and it is not mere coincidence, then, that their relics occur here, and further southward. In a like manner, during this age of frigidity, other mammals migrated far south of their natural habitat. The remains of walrus have been reported as far south as New Jersey and even Georgia, the caribou in New England, and Symbos, an extinct musk-ox, has been trailed from Alaska south to Arkansas, and in Europe to southern France

EVIDENCE OF DINOSAURS IN NEBRASKA

Nebraska has long been a collecting ground famous for its fossil mammals, but as yet no dinosaurian bones have been reported, nor have they been expected. The distal end of a finely preserved femur, however, has recently been brought to light, supposedly occurring in position in the Dakota formation of eastern Nebraska. It was discovered, collected, and donated by Mr. J. B. White, (University of Nebraska, Law, class of 1899) on his farm two miles south of Decatur, in northeastern Burt County, near the Missouri River. It was found in undoubted Dakota sand associated with many leaf impressions. This is taken as strong evidence, rather than proof positive, that the bone was actually in position

THE MILFORD MASTODON, MASTODON MOODIE I, SP. NOV. A PRELIMINARY REPORT

In developing the hydro-electric plant of the Iowa and Nebraska Light and Power Company, a number of dams were thrown across the Blue River and its branches. One of these, known as Dam No.7, was built across the West Blue, about nine miles southwest of Milford, Seward county, Nebraska. This dam raised the water well above the ordinary river level, and flooded fifteen or twenty acres of valley land. The impounded water soaked into, and washed against, the base of a twenty-foot bank of cross-bedded sand, until some time during the winter of 1931, a portion of the bank near the base slipped, and slid down, carrying with it a well-preserved mastodon skull which hitherto had lain buried there. The skull was eased down on the sand at the water\u27s edge unbroken, and came to rest on its crown

THE SKULL AND MANDIBLE OF MASTODON MOODIEI

The mandible of the Milford mastodon, Mastodon moodiei, was figured and described in Bulletin 24, December, 1931. In the meantime, the fragments of both skull and mandible have been properly cleaned, put together, and mounted for exhibition. No essential parts of the skull or mandible are wanting or are seriously damaged

Evidence of Loess Man in Nebraska

Unconsciously or otherwise an investigator is often influenced to see that which seems confirmatory rather than that which is contradictory to his conceptions and beliefs. But in conducting the search for evidence of human remains in the Pleistocene the writer has striven against this psychological tendency and has aimed to be severely critical and exact

A NEW MIOCENE ARTIODACTYL

AMONG several discoveries made in the Daimonelix beds (Loup Fork) of Sioux County, Nebraska, the most striking one of the season seems to be that of a new four-horned ancestral antelope, Syndyoceras cooki, the skull of which is herein figured and briefly described. The discovery was made by Mr. Harold G. Cook, a former Lincoln student and a member of the Morrill geological expedition of 1905

A NEW AMEBELODONT, TORYNOBELODON BARNUMBROWNI, SP. NOV. A PRELIMINARY REPORT

The subfamily of longirostrine mastodonts known as the Amebelodontinae have been so recently discovered and described that as yet they; are little known by the citizens of this state. They are most briefly and directly described as shovel-tusked mastodons. The first one found, namely Amebelodon fricki, was secured in April 1927, and was published June 1927. In the meantime, many other examples of Amebelodonts have been added to the Morrill Palaeontological Collections of the Nebraska State Museum. The exact number cannot be stated until the material shipped in from the field during the current season is unpacked, cleaned, and identified. Already there have been secured, according to field reports, six or eight fine mandibles and a number of broken ones. Some of these mandibles seem to deviate so from type as to kindle expectation and fire the field parties with enthusiasm