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. _Evansville, Vanderburg County._—So far as the writer knows, remains
of extinct horses have been found in Indiana only at the mouth of Pigeon
Creek, a short distance below Evansville. Only a single vertebra, a last
cervical, was secured. This formed part of a collection made at the
place named by Mr. Francis A. Lincke. The collection was described by
Dr. Leidy (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1854, p. 199). The bone was
referred to _Equus americanus_, a name employed at that time for the
horse now known as _Equus complicatus_. Although it would usually be
impossible to identify a species of horse on such materials, it is
probable that Leidy was correct. The geological age of the bone-bed is
discussed on page 32. It is concluded that the age is most probably the
Sangamon, but possibly Aftonian. The same species has been found at
Bigbone Lick, above Louisville, on the Kentucky side. The deposits there
overlie the Illinoian drift and are, in part at least, Sangamon.
Associated with the horse bone at Pigeon Creek were megalonyx, a
probably extinct bison, the Virginia deer, a tapir, and the extinct wolf
_Ænocyon dirus_.
ILLINOIS.
(Map 17.)
1. _On the line between Bond and Fayette Counties._—In 1899, Leidy
(Trans. Wagner Inst., vol. II, p. 39, figure) described under the name
of _Equus major_ an equine maxilla, containing 4 premolars, sent him by
A. H. Worthen, State geologist of Illinois. This maxilla had been found
in a bog between Bond and Fayette counties. It was referred by Gidley
(Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. XIV, p. 135, fig. 24) to _Equus
pectinatus_ Cope. The specimen is in the collection of the State museum
at Springfield and has been studied by the writer, who regards it as
belonging to _Equus complicatus_. A fossil horse-tooth found at Bigbone
Lick, Kentucky, greatly resembles one of the premolars of this jaw.
The region where this jaw was found lies within the area of the
Illinoian drift; and, inasmuch as the specimen was found on a bog lying
on this drift, the animal must have lived after the withdrawal of the
Illinoian ice-sheet. The bog deposit belonged probably to the Sangamon
stage.
The writer has endeavored earnestly, but in vain, to obtain more exact
details regarding the locality where the jaw was found and the depth of
interment.
2. _Alton, Madison County._—At a meeting of the St. Louis Academy of
Science, December 4, 1882 (Trans. St. Louis Acad. Sci., vol. IV, p.
LXXX), William McAdams reported he had seen the fossil tooth of a horse
from near Alton. No details were added, except that all the horses he
had seen from the drift were large animals, while those from the bad
lands of Dakota were mostly quite small.
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