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
1. _Bogue Chitto, Dallas County._—In the U. S. National Museum is a
lower left molar which belongs to this species. It was collected by
Lawrence Johnson, of the U. S. Geological Survey. It is worn down to the
base in front and some plates have thus disappeared. Parts of seven
plates and the hinder talon remain. The width of the grinding-face is 90
mm. At the third plate from the rear the height of the crown is 97 mm.
The hinder border of the tooth is obtusely keeled and there are no
indications that there was another tooth behind it. It seems necessary,
therefore, to regard it as the hindermost molar. The large hinder root
was developed, but hollow to contain the pulp. The anterior root is
entirely missing. The plates of the crown turn backward strongly. Of
these plates there are on the inner face of the tooth hardly four in a
100–mm. line; on the outer face, only four. The enamel is rather
strongly folded and of moderate thickness.
With this tooth there came from the same place a molar of _Equus leidyi_
and some fragments of teeth of _Mammut americanum_. The writer believes
that these species show the presence, along Bogue Chitto, of Pleistocene
deposits of about Aftonian age.
2. “_Near Gulf of Mexico._”—J. C. Warren, in the second edition of his
work, “The _Mastodon giganteus_ of North America,” 1855, page 162, plate
XXVIII, figure A, described and figured a part of a large upper molar,
probably the hindermost, of an elephant which, as the writer believes,
belongs to _Elephas imperator_. Warren stated merely that this tooth had
been found in Alabama, near the Gulf of Mexico. He regarded the tooth as
belonging to _Elephas primigenius_ and representing a form with
extremely thick plates. Falconer (Palæont. Mem., vol. I, p. 227)
described the tooth with somewhat more accuracy than did Warren,
although he had only a cast of the tooth. He stated that the specimen
presented the middle portion of an enormous last upper molar of the
right side. This tooth had lost part of the front by wear and the rear
by fracture. There were preserved eight complete ridges and a half of
another in front. Falconer said that it bore a close resemblance to the
Bollaert tooth found at San Filipe, in Texas, a tooth described in The
Geologist, of London, in 1861, 1862, volumes IV and V. He gave the
length of the fragment, measured at the base, as 7 inches; the length of
the eight hinder ridges, at the base, 6.6 inches; the width of the crown
at the third ridge, 4.6 inches; the greatest width behind, 4.9 inches;
the height of the last ridge, 8 inches. The average thickness of the
plates, including the cement, was 0.8 inch. Warren’s figure shows that
the enamel is well crimped. Falconer referred the tooth, with some
doubt, to _Elephas columbi_, but he was not well acquainted with _E.
imperator_. The present writer believes that the tooth belongs to the
last species named. It is now in the American Museum of Natural History,
New York.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account