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
24. _Aurora, Kane County._—H. M. Bannister, in 1870 (Geol. Surv.
Illinois, vol. IV, p. 113) wrote as follows: “A portion of the remains
of a mastodon, consisting of the tusks and several teeth, was obtained
in excavating the track for the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad
near the city of Aurora, and are now preserved in the museum of Clark
Seminary at that place.”
These same remains were described by the geologist C. D. Wilbur (Trans.
Ill. Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. I, p. 59, figs. 1 to 3). He stated that both
tusks and seven teeth were found, all well preserved. The tusks were 10
feet long and 10 inches in diameter at the base; they were curved upward
and considerably worn at the ends on the underside. Charles Whittlesey
(Smithson. Contrib. Knowl., vol. XV, art. 3, p. 16) probably referred to
these remains. He stated that they were found in a swamp.
Probably one of these teeth was sent to Dr. J. C. Warren, of Boston, the
author of “The _Mastodon giganteus_ of North America.” It is described
in the second edition of this monograph, on page 76. In the Proceedings
of the Boston Society of Natural History, volume IV, page 376, Warren
described a tooth, probably the same, which had been found 40 miles west
of Chicago, at a depth of 8 feet. He said it was the largest mastodon
tooth then known.
In Netta C. Anderson’s list, page 10, it is reported that in 1875 some
mastodon remains were found about 8 miles southwest of Naperville, which
is in Du Page County. The locality would be not far from the common
meeting-point of Kane, Kendall, Will, and Du Page Counties; also
probably within 8 miles of Aurora. The remains, whatever they were, were
donated to the museum of Jennings Seminary, Aurora.
In Netta C. Anderson’s list it is stated that teeth and a tusk of a
mastodon were found, in 1853, by workmen extending the Burlington
Railroad south of Aurora. They were in a swamp near Fox River, where the
Burlington shops are situated. These remains, probably the same as those
above described, were presented to Jennings Seminary.
25. _Batavia, Kane County._—This town is in Kane County, about 9 miles
north of Aurora. In Netta C. Anderson’s list, on page 13, Dr. E. S.
Riggs, of the Field Museum of Natural History, reported that, somewhere
in this vicinity, in cutting a ditch to drain a marshy lake of about 200
acres, some leg-bones and vertebræ of mastodon were found in a sticky
clay from about 5 to 7 feet from the surface. Dr. Riggs writes that
along the same ditch he picked up a jaw of the existing species of elk
and some bison bones.
_Maple Park, Kane County._—Doctor Rufus M. Bagg recorded in 1909 (Bull.
Univ. Ill., vol. VI, No. 17, p. 50, plate IV) the discovery of a large
part of the skeleton of a mastodon. It was found at a depth of 6 feet.
The exact location was not given.
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