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
3. _Pittsford, Monroe County._—In 1842 (Zool. New York Mamm., p. 101,
plate XXXII, fig. 2), J. E. De Kay described, under the name _Elephas
americanus_, a tooth found at Perinton, about 10 miles east of Rochester
and near Irondequoit River. A description of the discovery and of the
locality had been given in 1837 (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XXXII, p. 377)
by an anonymous writer. Two teeth and a tusk had been found in a sandy
bank on the stream mentioned while a race was being made for a saw-mill.
The tusk, and probably the teeth also, lay at a depth of 4 feet. The
exact locality was described as being 2 miles north of the crossing of
Erie Canal. This is in reality southeast of Rochester and near
Pittsford. On page 59 is described a tusk of a supposed mastodon found
at Pittsford in 1830.
De Kay regarded the animal as belonging to an undescribed species, but
his name _Elephas americanus_ had been applied to the mastodon by Cuvier
in 1799.
On examining Fairchild’s plates showing the recession of the Wisconsin
ice-sheet (Bull. 127, State Mus. New York) it will be seen that the
localities where the three specimens of _Elephas primigenius_ have been
found are close to the south shore of the ancient Lake Iroquois. The
animals could not, therefore, have lived before the ice had nearly or
quite withdrawn into the basin of the present Lake Ontario. They may
have lived long after this, possibly up to, or near to, the beginning of
the Recent. It is to be noted further that the locality of the molar
tooth found at Williamson, Wayne County, is closer to the shore of
Iroquois Lake than is that of any of the mastodons; so possibly this
species existed somewhat longer than did the mastodon.
4. _Buffalo, Erie County._—From the director of the Buffalo Society of
Natural History, Dr. William L. Bryant, the writer has received
photographs of a right upper hindermost molar of _Elephas primigenius_
dredged from near the middle of Niagara River, opposite Buffalo. The
tooth is 275 mm. long and 100 mm. wide on the worn surface. It is worn
to near the base in front, but probably no plates are wholly lost. There
appear to be about 24 present. It appears probable that the tooth had
not been carried far after being washed from its resting-place. Although
it probably belongs to the Wisconsin stage, there is a possibility that
it was washed out of some older Pleistocene deposit.
5. _Queensbury, Warren County._—Mr. C. A. Hartnagel, assistant State
geologist of New York, informed the writer of the discovery, some 60
years ago, of a tooth of an elephant near Queensbury, situated near the
southern end of Lake George. The tooth is labeled as found on the John
Harris farm. The nature of the deposit in which it was buried is not
known. It was found during the excavation of a cellar, therefore at no
great depth.
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