Dear Prof. Osborn:-

The hot weather is upon us at last. Not excessively warm but still a bit too much so for comfort in the middle of the day. Altogether it is more agreeable than the cool weather for the nights are delightful now. Previously I've had my overcoat on most every evening.

Herr Markgraf has gone in to Cairo and six of Quibell's men leave tonight. This leaves with David, Ali, Massaont and Hussein (the old men from Tamia) and two of Quibell's men. These two rather have developed a good deal of skill at prospecting and also at pasting bones and we shall keep them until we close. I'm discharging two camels tonight. Six are plenty for our present needs.

Markgraf did not have much more success after finding the Palaeomastodon lower jaws. In his last delivery there was a good upper jaw of the large Carnivore Pterodon which fills out our series of Creodonts very nicely. That Markgraf did his best I am sure, and indeed, some of our best things are of his collecting.

Quarry B is abandoned now, except for one little corner which we may develop a bit more is we have extra time to spare. In Quarry A we have opened up a strip just south of the old working, going in under the edge of Beadnell's dump pits. The bones are not numerous nor especially perfect but are in the best condition of any we have found yet. The best thing we have from this stripping so far is a very fine Palaeomastodon palate with its ptergoid region finely preserved. There also many well preserved vertebrae here which will be useful if you ever attempt a mount of Arsinoitherium, and I recall that you instructed me to take all vertebrae.

As soon as Olsen quit Quarry B, where he has been steadily ever since he started in, he began prospecting and in the three days he has found two beautiful Pterodon skulls. They are of a medium size of species (one is 12 inches long). One is practically perfect, having the (?) out on one side as the only serious defect. The skull is remarkably slender with a very high and thus (?) crest, very small eye sockets, well forward, with a high and fan shaped supra occipital region which considerably overhangs the (?).

The canines are not large and its 1st premolar is placed just inside of the posterior border of the canine. There are two incisors, a large outer one and a very small minor one. There is no crushing and its bone is well preserved.

The second skull had been as good as the first but the entire maxillary and frontal region is sheared off on one side by erosion and the brain case opened up. One half of the skull is perfect as well as the entire occipital region.

No prettier specimen than the first skull will ever be found in here. It's a pity it could not have been one of the larger forms such as an Arsinoitherium, which are really more common than the Creodonts. With our fine lower jaws of at least three genera and these two skulls (both same genus) and the maxilla of Markgraf's we are well off in this group.

We have also found recently a back stop of a large, well preserved Arsinoitherium skull, it lay bottom side up and the inlate marillary region is gone together with the lower half of the horns. We hope that our next skull may be a good one.

Yesterday I spent an hour or so in the middle Eocene south of here and found a few bones worth taking, including a ramus, without teeth of a very peculiar, undescribed form, with one enormous canine tooth alveales and the roots of the other molars and premolars, which, judging from their shape were not of carnivore patterning. There is no (?) between the large tooth and the first one back of it so it could not be Barytherium. I shall spend some more time in this layer. It may turn out something worthwhile.

I've written to Diradour twice regarding prints but have heard nothing from him yet.

Cairo is certainly the worst place to have things attended to promptly I have ever seen.

The camels are waiting and must get the off tonight. Everything is going along smoothly here and we shall do a good deal of prospecting now that the men are off our hands. I'll wish I could report a fine Arsinoitherium skull before we leave here, but I'm not at all sure.

With regard

Very sincerely yours

Walter Granger