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
Of these, _Megalonyx_, _Mylodon_, _Hipparion_, _Platygonus_, _Anancus_,
_Gomphotherium?_, _Stegomastodon_, and _Felis_ are known from the first
interglacial stage. _Anancus_ includes mastodons with short, tuskless
lower jaws and trefoiled molars. _Gomphotherium_, having long lower jaws
with tusks, upper tusks with enamel band, and with trefoiled molars, may
be represented by some of the early Pleistocene species. The same
species of _Stegomastodon_ appears to be present in the Blanco as in the
Pleistocene, _S. mirificus_. The edentate _Glyptotherium_ is not far
removed from _Glyptodon_ of the early Pleistocene. The Blanco genera of
horses are so close to _Equus_ that Cope regarded them as belonging to
this genus.
The matter may be looked at from another point of view. If _Mylodon_,
_Megalonyx_, and _Glyptotherium_ are referred to the Middle Pliocene, we
shall probably have them recorded as living in Texas before they existed
in South America. It is true that Santiago Roth (Neues Jahrb., Min.
Beil., Bd., vol. XXVI, table opposite p. 144) states that _Glyptodon_
occurs in the Lower Pampas beds, and these he refers to the Upper
Miocene; but the writer believes that Wilckens (Neues Jahrb, Min. Beil.,
Bd., vol. XXI, p. 193) is more nearly correct in placing them in the
Pliocene. While the opinion may be correct that, when no obstacles
intervene, the time required for mammals to spread over even a continent
constitutes but a small part of a geological age, yet in making their
way from South America, especially from Argentina, along the narrow
bridge that appears to have been offered them, probably over mountain
ranges, and across rivers and gorges, and in the face of the competing
fauna advancing from the north, some of which were wolves and
saber-tooth tigers, the slowly plodding and inoffensive edentates would
have encountered too many hindrances to be able to make the journey in a
short time.
The writer, therefore, ventures to range the Blanco immediately below
the Pleistocene. On about the same level may be placed the
Tulare-Etchegoin and the Thousand Creek formations of Merriam (Bull.
Dept. Geol. Univ. Calif., vol. X, pp. 425, 429).
III. THE HISTORICAL DIVISIONS OF THE PLEISTOCENE.
The writer accepts the divisions of the Pleistocene which the geologists
appear to have established. Formerly it was believed that North America
had been subjected to a single glacial epoch; now it seems to be proved
that there have occurred five such glacial epochs, or stages, and that
there have intervened four interglacial stages of mild climate. The
interglacial stages are italicized. The Nebraskan stage is the earliest,
the Wisconsin the latest: Wisconsin, _Peorian_, Iowan, _Sangamon_,
Illinoian, _Yarmouth_, Kansan, _Aftonian_, Nebraskan.
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