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
FINDS OF PLEISTOCENE CETACEANS IN EASTERN NORTH AMERICA.
(Map 1.)
ONTARIO.
1. _Nepean Township, Carleton County._—In 1914, Mr. L. M. Lambe, of the
Canadian Geological Survey, stated (Summ. Rep. for 1913, p. 299) that
Walter Billings, of Ottawa, had presented to the Survey a caudal
vertebra of _Delphinapterus leucas_, found in Pleistocene gravel on lot
15, concession 5, of Nepean township. The locality is near Jock River, a
stream which flows northeasterly and enters Rideau River about 11 miles
south of Ottawa. With it was sent the lower end of a femur, supposed to
belong to the bison.
2. _Ottawa East, Carleton County._—In 1910, Mr. L. M. Lambe reported
(Summ. Rep. Geol. Surv. Can. for 1909, p. 273) that Mr. A. Penfold had
presented to the Survey a caudal vertebra of _Delphinapterus leucas_,
which he had found at Ottawa East, at a depth of 25 feet, while digging
a well.
3. _Smith’s Falls, Lanark County._—In 1883 (Amer. Jour. Sci., ser. 3,
vol. XXV, p. 200) Dr. J. W. Dawson announced the finding of two
vertebræ, a part of another, and a fragment of a rib of a large whale,
in a ballast pit at Welshe’s, 3 miles north of Smith’s Falls. This whale
he identified as _Megaptera longimana_ (_M. boöps_). The bones were
found in gravel at a depth of 30 feet and about 50 feet from the
original face of the pit. The elevation of the place is given as about
440 feet above sea-level. Dawson stated that this corresponds exactly
with the height of one of the sea-terraces on Royal Mountain at
Montreal. He added that this animal might have sailed past that
mountain, then only a rocky islet, when a wide sea, 400 feet above the
lower levels of Montreal, covered all the plain of the lower St.
Lawrence. Inasmuch as the highest terrace containing marine fossils at
Montreal stands at a height of about 625 feet (Stansfield, Mem. 73,
Canad. Geol. Surv., 1915) above sea-level, the region had apparently
risen about 160 feet at least above its lowest submergence when the
whale was buried. The discovery of this whale is mentioned by Dawson in
his “Canadian Ice Age,” 1894, page 268; also by Professor G. H. Perkins
in his Report of the State Geologist of Vermont, 1907–8, page 83.
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