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
The first notice of this jaw appears to have been given in 1838 (First
Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Ohio, pp. 96, 97) by C. Briggs, assistant
geologist of the survey. He stated that with some other bones it had
been found, by unnamed persons, about 1835, in the bank of a branch of
Salt Creek, in the northwest part of the county. A second search, made
by Briggs and Foster, brought to light fragments of the skull, two
teeth, and some other parts of the skeleton. Parts of the tusk in a
frail condition were secured. It is interesting to learn that the tusk
measured on the outer curve 10 feet 9 inches. The writer has been unable
to learn what has become of these bones; none is in the collection of
the State University at Columbus. The report made by Briggs on this
specimen was reprinted in the American Journal of Science, volume XXXIV,
1838, page 358, in a review of Mathers’ First Annual Report. The author
of the review was almost certainly J. W. Foster. An unsigned letter,
apparently also by Foster, follows, in which are poor figures of the jaw
and one of the teeth. In this letter the name _Elephas jacksoni_ is
applied to the remains. In 1839 (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XXXVI, p. 190),
Foster contributed a figure of one of the teeth, probably a hindermost
molar, but it is uncertain whether it represents the whole tooth or the
remaining part of a worn one; nor is the amount of reduction indicated.
The present writer finds it impossible to decide whether the tooth
belongs to _Elephas primigenius_ or _E. columbi_.
2. _Beverly, Washington County._—In 1874 (Geol. Surv. Ohio, vol. II, pt.
1, p. 471), Mr. E. B. Andrews reported that, several years before he
wrote, parts of the skeleton of a huge mammoth had been dug up in
Beverly. Among other parts were several large teeth in good
preservation, one of which was deposited in the cabinet of Marietta
College; but the writer has not been able to learn anything about it. A
Dr. Bowen, of Waterford Township, was said to have found, somewhere
farther up Muskingum River, a shoulder-blade of a mammoth; but this
locality must have been in Morgan County. The identification of the
species is also questionable.
3. _Nashport, Muskingum County._—J. W. Foster (Geol. Surv. Ohio, vol.
II, 1838, p. 80) reported a molar and a tusk of an elephant had been dug
up at Nashport, in excavating a canal. With these had been found remains
of a mastodon, of _Castoroides_, and of a supposed sheep. More probably
the latter was an intrusion of a domestic sheep. These remains had been
preserved in the Zanesville Athenæum, but the writer can get no trace of
them.
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