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
9. _Knox or Gibson County._—In Blainville’s “Ostéographie des
Mammifères,” page 340, it was stated that the lower jaw of a mastodon
had been found at some place between Vincennes and New Harmony. The
locality would be in either Knox or Gibson County. The valley of the
Wabash in all this region is filled with outwash from the Wisconsin
glacier, and most probably the animal represented lived during the
Wisconsin stage; but our lack of knowledge of the conditions in which
the jaw was found forbids any assumption of certainty in our conclusion.
10. _Parke County._—In the Forty-first Annual Report of the State Museum
of New York it is reported that there was received, about 1888, the
tooth of a mastodon, found in this county, at the junction of Raccoon
and Little Raccoon Creeks. These creeks unite on section 23 of township
14 north, range 8 west. The political name of the township is Florida.
The region is covered by Illinoian drift; hence the tooth is quite
certainly more recent than that epoch. The valleys of the creeks named
are occupied by outwash from Wisconsin drift, and probably the teeth
found lodgment there during the Wisconsin stage.
11. _Brookville, Franklin County._—The writer has given an account of
the remains of mastodons found near Brookville (36th Ann. Rep. Geol.
Surv. Indiana, 1912, p. 704). The information is derived from a report
by Dr. Rufus Haymond, made in the First Annual Report, 1869, page 199.
Two of these were found 8 or 9 feet below the surface, in the gravel of
the upper terrace, along Whitewater River. One was discovered about half
a mile below Brookville, the other about 3.5 miles below the village.
According to Mr. A. E. Taylor’s account of this region (34th Ann. Rep.
Geol. Surv. Indiana), the terrace in which the mastodon bones were
buried is 100 feet above the present bed of Whitewater River. As Haymond
speaks of skeletons being found at these localities, it is probable that
something more than isolated teeth or bones were buried there. If so,
the bones were in their original place of interment, and since that
interment the terrace was built up higher by about 8 feet. According to
Leverett (Monogr. LIII, p. 118), these terraces were made from the
outwash of the Wisconsin glacier while it was forming the moraines which
cross Wayne and the southern part of Randolph Counties. If this is true,
these mastodons lived shortly after the culmination of the Wisconsin
stage. This interpretation would imply that mastodons could live in very
close proximity to the glacial front. However, not too much importance
must be attached to this case, for it is possible that the animals were
not correctly identified.
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