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
2. _Head of Cooper River, Berkeley County._—Richard Harlan (Jour. Acad.
Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. III, 1823, p. 66, plate V, fig. 2; Med. Phys.
Res., p. 359, plate, fig. 2) described briefly and figured an elephant
tooth found in constructing the Santee Canal, probably in Biggin Swamp,
where the remains of _Mammut americanum_ and _Elephas columbi_ were
discovered. The tooth was a large one, the greatest diagonal length
being 14.5 inches (368 mm.). It had been worn back quite to the rear,
the trituration having affected 15 ridge-plates. This worn face measured
9 inches (228 mm.). Harlan stated that on this grinding-face 5 inches
was occupied by 6 enamel plates and 7 plates of cement. An estimate
shows that a 100–mm. line would cross 5 of the ridge-plates. Had this
tooth possessed the number (24) of ridge-plates usually found in _E.
columbi_, its length would have been 20 inches or more.
FLORIDA.
(Maps 14, 15.)
1. _Dunnellon, Marion County._—In the collection of the Florida
Geological Survey (Nos. 2233, 2234) are two fragments of teeth of an
elephant dredged from Withlacoochee River at Dunnellon, presented by Mr.
F. J. Titcomb. The teeth are regarded by the writer as being lower last
molars, although the plates run nearly directly across the
grinding-surfaces. They may belong to one individual. No. 2233 presents
six plates; five of these occupy a line 100 mm. in length. They are much
bent as they ascend, so that their hinder faces are very concave. The
enamel is moderately thick.
The tooth (No. 2234) has been figured by Dr. Sellards of the natural
size (8th Ann. Rep. Florida Geol. Surv., p. 85, fig. 12). As shown by
that figure, the ridge-plates of the rear portion have a thickness of 25
mm. or even more. Taken all together there are hardly 5 in 100 mm. If
that tooth had belonged to _Elephas columbi_ and had had 24 plates, the
length would have been about 25 inches, which is hardly to be supposed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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