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Nature 455, 464-465 (25 September 2008) | doi:10.1038/455464a; Published online 24 September 2008

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Land of giants

Ross MacPhee1

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Expansion of the railways across the western United States changed the face of vertebrate palaeontology, and perhaps the country itself, explains Ross MacPhee.

BOOK REVIEWEDThe Legacy of the Mastodon: The Golden Age of Fossils in America

by Keith Thomson

Yale University Press: 2008. 386 pp. $35, £22.50

Vertebrate fossils are rarely found in nature, but prominent exceptions are in the rich interior geological basins of western North America. The arrival of the railways in these desolate regions in the mid-nineteenth century set the stage for a 'bone rush', as Keith Thomson describes in his new book, The Legacy of the Mastodon.