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
With the tibia from Wakulla Springs is the distal half of an immense
femur of the left side. The distance across the articular surface of the
distal end was at least 241 mm., but the bone has suffered some
abrasion. The outer articular surface measures 115 mm.; the inner 1,202
mm. When the bone is placed on a table with the hinder face downward the
inner ridge which bounds the patellar groove rises 280 mm. above the
table. Whether these bones belong to _Elephas imperator_ or to _E.
columbi_ is uncertain.
2. _Stokes Ferry, St. Mary’s River, Nassau County._—In 1909, Sellards
(2d Ann. Rep. Florida Geol. Surv., p. 147) stated that Dr. L. W.
Stephenson, of the U. S. Geological Survey, had found at this place, in
a phosphate deposit, a fragment of an elephant tooth together with 3
teeth of a fossil horse and some ear-bones of a whale. The elephant
belonged probably to _E. columbi_, but possibly to _E. imperator_.
3. _Bartow, Polk County._—Dr. W. H. Dall (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila.,
1891, p. 120) has recorded the discovery at this place of tusks supposed
to be those of _Elephas columbi_. Possibly the tusks were those of _E.
imperator_ or even those of _Mammut americanum_.
MISSISSIPPI.
(Map 16.)
1. _Natchez, Adams County._—In his report on the Geology and Agriculture
of Mississippi, 1854, page 284, Wailles wrote that fossil remains of the
elephant were not then known to have been found in the State. However,
on page 286, _Elephas primigenius_ is included in the list of fossil
Mammalia furnished by Leidy. The latter does not say where in
Mississippi elephant remains had been discovered, but it was probably at
Natchez.
In his work on the Lafayette formation (12th Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol.
Surv., part 1, p. 400), McGee stated that at least one skull of the
American elephant had been found at Natchez in gravel, well down toward
the Port Hudson clays, and that to this adhered some of the coarse
gravel of the matrix. Probably the species was _Elephas columbi_. It is
likely that the skulls referred to by McGee were not as complete as he
supposed.
TENNESSEE.
(Map 16. Figure 23.)
1. _Gallatin, Sumner County._—In 1835, Professor G. Troost (Trans. Geol.
Soc. Penn., vol. I, 1835, p. 144) reported that a Mrs. Ephraim Foster
possessed a tooth of _Elephas primigenius_ found in a well at a depth of
40 feet. The identification followed the opinion of that time that only
one species of elephant had existed in the country. It more probably
belonged to _E. columbi_.
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