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
4. _Head of Cooper River, Berkeley County._—In 1802, John Drayton (“A
View of South Carolina,” p. 40, plate, fig. 5) wrote that elephant bones
had been discovered in the excavation of a canal joining Santee and
Cooper Rivers. Drayton’s illustration shows that this tooth must have
belonged to _Elephas columbi_. The locality was in Biggin Swamp,
apparently not far from Monks Corner. At the same time and place were
found remains of _Mammut americanum_. The materials are said to have
been deposited in the Charleston Library. Barton (Archæologia Amer., p.
22) stated he had examined teeth of both the mastodon and the elephant
from this place. Richard Harlan (Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., ser. 1,
vol. III, p. 66, plate V, fig. 3; Med. Phys. Res. p. 359, plate, fig. 3)
stated that a tooth of an elephant from the Santee Canal had been sent
to the Academy at Philadelphia.
GEORGIA.
(Map 12.)
1. _Brunswick, Glynn County._—This is the type locality of _Elephas
columbi_. This species was based by Falconer (Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc.
Lond., XIII, 1857, table opposite p. 219) on a part of a tooth received
from the geologist Charles Lyell and which had been found in the
Brunswick Canal. The specimen consisted of 10 median plates of a lower
second or third molar. Falconer figured it in 1868 (Palæont. Mem., vol.
II, pp. 214, 221, plate X). Lyell (Second Visit, etc. vol. I, p. 348)
noted that an elephant had been found in excavating the canal. Richard
Harlan, in 1842 (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. I, p. 189), stated
that a large collection of bones of various animals had been presented
to the Academy by J. Hamilton Couper, of Darien, Georgia. Among these
were teeth of _E. primigenius_. Couper, in 1848 (Hodgson’s Memoir, etc.,
p. 45), stated that two lower jawbones with teeth, several loose teeth,
two tusks, and several vertebræ of _Elephas primigenius_ had been
collected in the canal during 1838 and 1839. These remains quite
certainly belonged to _Elephas columbi_ unless possibly some belonged to
_E. imperator_.
Leidy (Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. VII, 1869, p. 254) records the
presence in the collection of the Academy of a lower molar of _E.
columbi_. The present writer has seen in this collection parts of four
teeth of this species which had been sent from the Brunswick Canal,
doubtless parts of the Couper collection. The species are listed on page
369.
2. _Skidaway Island, near Savannah, Chatham County._—Lyell (Second
Visit, etc., vol. I, p. 314) reported that _Elephas primigenius_ had
been found at this place, with _Megatherium_, _Mylodon_, _Mastodon_, and
what was doubtless a species of _Bison_. Habersham, in 1846 (Hodgson’s
Memoir, etc., p. 29), mentioned two teeth which he identified likewise
as _E. primigenius_. These elephant teeth are all to be referred with
much certainty to _E. columbi_.
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