Balachitherium osborni and its Relations

Abstract

THE history of the discovery of the various fragments of Baluchitherium, which have enabled Prof. Osborn to make the preliminary restoration here reproduced (Fig. 5),1 is interesting. In 1910 the present writer was fortunate enough to obtain bones of numerous extinct animals in the early Miocene deposits of Baluchistan. Nearly all of the animals were strange and, except for such of them as had previously been obtained by Dr. Pilgrim of the Indian Geological Survey, were previously unknown. Among them an atlas, the first bone of the neck (Fig. i) and an astragalus, one of the principal bones of the ankle, were of such astounding size as to proclaim themselves as belonging to an entirely new form of mammals, and one larger even than the elephant. Beyond the fact that the bones belonged to the Perissodactyla, a group which includes the horses, tapirs, and rhinoceroses, together with some extinct families, nothing further at the time could be said of them.