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. _Posey County._—On page 341 of Blainville’s “Ostéographie des
Mammifères,” volume III, it is stated that Lesueur had shown Blainville
drawings of a fine vertebra and a femur, with its epiphyses, of a
mastodon which had been found along the Wabash River. His language
indicates that this was somewhere below New Harmony. He stated that
these bones were in the library at Vincennes, Indiana. In answer to my
inquiry about these bones, President Horace Ellis, of Vincennes
University, informed me that some bones which appear to be those
mentioned are in his university.
These remains were found in digging a well, at a depth of 60 feet. One
of the curators of the library at Vincennes, Mr. Badollet, states that
with these bones were some skin and hair. We may suppose that there was
some mistake about this.
Unfortunately, as in so many other cases, it is now impossible to
determine just where these remains were found. New Harmony is situated
on the border of the Illinoian drift, and this continues nearly 10 miles
farther south. This drift is covered by loess. A well sunk here would,
at a depth of 60 feet, be in probably Iowan loess. Nearer the river, in
the lowlands, the depth given would probably be in Wisconsin outwash.
2. _Dubois County._—Some details regarding the specimen found here are
given in the author’s paper on the “Pleistocene of Indiana” (36th Ann.
Rep. Geol. Surv. Indiana, p. 702). A part of a mastodon was found long
ago near the mouth of Wolf Creek, at the Rock House Ford of White River.
This appears to be in Harrison Township (1 north, range 4 west). The
valley of White River is here occupied by alluvial terraces older than
the Wisconsin drift (Leverett, Monogr. XXXVII, U. S. Geol. Surv., plate
VI). There is here too, no doubt, much outwash from the Wisconsin
glacier itself.
The writer has received a photograph of a mastodon tooth which Mr.
Marshall Roberts, of Jasper, Indiana, found in 1912 in East White River,
in the northwest part of Harrison Township. The tooth is 195 mm. long
and 87 mm. wide and has four crests and a large talon.
In Samuel L. Mitchill’s “Observations on the Geology of North America,”
page 363, it is stated that a part of a mastodon had been found, in July
1817, “near the falls of the east branch” of White River. No exact
conclusion can be drawn from the facts known.
3. _Hindostan, Martin County._—Mastodon remains (36th Rep. Geol. Surv.
Indiana, p. 707) have been found at Hindostan, on the east bank of White
River, about 4.5 miles directly southwest of Shoals. A mastodon tooth
was found in White River at Shoals (op. cit., p. 709). It appears to be
impossible to determine the age of this material.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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