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
It is impossible to determine the geological age of this tooth.
Chillicothe is situated on Illinois River and within the area of the
Wisconsin drift. The valley is filled with deposits brought down from
the Wisconsin ice-sheet and by late alluvium; but at a depth of 40 feet
there might possibly be some earlier gravels.
4. _Chicago Heights, Cook County._—From J. H. Knapp, Chicago Heights,
the writer has received photographs of a lower hindermost molar of
_Elephas columbi_, found in Second Creek, 2.5 miles east of Chicago
Heights. This locality is situated on the Valparaiso moraine and we must
refer the time of the existence of the elephant to the Late Wisconsin
stage.
5. _Pawpaw, Lee County._—In the collection of the palæontological
department of the University of Nebraska the writer saw a lower molar of
_Elephas columbi_ (apparently the left second), found at Pawpaw. It was
presented by Dr. M. H. Everett, of Lincoln, Nebraska. There are present
19 ridge-plates, and there are 7 plates in a 100–mm. line.
On inquiry by the writer Mr. Frank Wheeler, of Pawpaw, furnished
detailed information. In constructing an ice-pond there was found at a
depth of 4 feet parts of both hip-bones, a femur 4 feet 4 inches long,
some much decayed foot-bones, some vertebræ and ribs, and the head and
lower jaw. The head is said to have been nearly 3 feet long and the
lower jaw 26 inches long. In the latter were two huge teeth. It appears
that the forelegs were present, but much decayed. No tusks were found,
nor any upper teeth. It was concluded that the animal was 22 feet 6
inches long and between 15 and 16 feet high; but the dimensions were
undoubtedly exaggerated. Certain “streaks and mossy fibers” led to the
conclusion that the animal had been covered with a coat of hair. It is
probable that all of these remains except the tooth in Lincoln have been
lost. Undoubtedly, had an expert in exhuming such skeletal remains been
called in there might have been rescued a large part of the skeleton. Up
to this time no good skeleton has been secured of _E. columbi_.
The place where the skeleton was found is in the southwest quarter of
the southeast quarter of section 10, township 37 north, range 2 east.
This is situated on a member of the Bloomington morainic system, a
moraine left by the Wisconsin ice-sheet. It is evident, therefore, that
the skeleton of the elephant had, during some Late Wisconsin time,
fallen in a pond and become slowly covered up.
There is an account of this discovery in F. E. Stevens’s “History of Lee
County, Illinois,” 1914, page 527.
6. _Woodhull, Henry County._—In the Galesburg, Illinois, Register of May
14, 1911, appeared an account of the finding of three large molars and
some bones of a supposed mastodon in a clay of a brick and tile factory
at Woodhull.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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