The Pleistocene of North America: and its vertebrated animals from the states east of the Mississippi River and from the Canadian provinces east of longitude 95°Hay, Oliver Perry
Science
The Pleistocene of North America: and its vertebrated animals from the states east of the Mississippi River and from the Canadian provinces east of longitude 95°
Hay, Oliver Perry
Paleontology -- North America; Paleontology -- Pleistocene; Vertebrates, Fossil
1. _Tunkhannock, Wyoming County._—In 1883 (2d Geol. Surv. Pennsylvania,
G^7, p. 20), Dr. I. C. White reported that the tusks and the teeth of a
mastodon had been found at Tunkhannock. At the mouth of Tunkhannock
Creek a large gravel deposit rises to a height of 125 feet above
Susquehanna River and then spreads out into a wide plain. In the valley
of the creek mentioned it takes the form of a sharp, low kame-like ridge
of gravel and boulders. In such deposits the mastodon remains were
found. According to White, these gravels and boulders were laid down in
the waters which came from the retreating glacier and which deeply
flooded all the streams. In case this explanation is the correct one,
this mastodon lived there after the beginning of the retreat of the
Wisconsin ice-sheet. Possibly, however, those gravels, at a height of
125 feet, belong to an older glacial stage.
White, on page 123 of his report quoted above, referred to a tusk which
had been dug up in one of the streets of Tunkhannock. This was probably
the one mentioned in connection with the teeth.
2. _Pittston, Luzerne County._—Dr. Joseph Leidy, in 1873 (Ext. Vert.
Fauna West. Terrs., p. 238, plate XXVIII, fig. 9), reported that there
was in the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia 3 first premolars
of apparently as many individuals of _Mammut americanum_, which had been
found at Pittston, associated with _Equus major_ (_E. complicatus_) and
_Symbos_ sp. indet. (“_Bison latifrons_” of Leidy). One of these he
figured. The present writer has examined these teeth. Two are upper
antepenultimate milk molars (pm^2), right and left; another is an upper
penultimate milk molar, whose length is 45 mm. and whose width is nearly
as much. They probably did not all belong to one individual. The
geological age of these mastodons will be discussed on page 308.
3. _Berwick, Columbia County._—The U. S. National Museum has a cast of a
mastodon tooth sent there in 1904 by Professor A. U. Lesher. The tooth
was an upper right last molar and only slightly worn. There were 4
crests and a very strongly developed talon. No details were furnished
regarding the conditions under which it was discovered.
4. _Reading, Berks County._—The collection of the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia contains a lower left hindermost tooth of a
mastodon and some fragments of one or two other teeth, said to have been
found on Schuylkill River at Reading. These remains appear not to have
been accompanied by any details regarding the manner of their burial.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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