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
14. _Ocean Grove, Monmouth County._—In 1910, after a storm, a part of a
skull of a walrus was found on the beach at Ocean Grove, New Jersey.
This is still in the possession of the finder, Mr. W. S. Hidden, who
furnished the writer with photographs of the specimen. It consists of
the front of the skull extending back to the bases of the zygomatic
arches, and containing portions of both tusks and most of the teeth.
There is no likelihood that this specimen belonged to any other species
than _Odobenus rosmarus_, and it was probably washed out of the same
deposits as those which furnished the specimen found at Long Branch.
VIRGINIA.
15. _Accomac County._—In the Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of
New York, volume II, 1828, page 271, Messrs. Mitchill, Smith, and Cooper
made a report on a fossil walrus skull found along the Virginia coast
somewhere in Accomac County. Only the anterior half of the skull was
secured. According to this report, portions of the tusks were preserved,
but were much mutilated. There were present also 4 of the grinding
teeth. The skull was described as being remarkably hard and heavy and
the tusks were almost agatized. The sutures of the skull had mostly
closed up; hence the animal was evidently an old one. The specimen bore
the marks of having been in salt water, and was said to have been found
on the beach.
This is the specimen which DeKay, in 1842 (Zool. of N. Y., pt. I, p. 56,
plate XIX, fig. 1), made the type of his _Trichechus virginianus_.
Newberry, in 1873 (Proc. Lyc. Nat. Hist. New York, p. 71), identified
the specimen as belonging to the existing Atlantic species. Cope (Proc.
Amer. Philos. Soc., vol. XIV, 1874, p. 17) does not mention the presence
of tusks. He supposed that there was, at that part of the coast, glacial
drift, out of which the skull had been washed. There are, however, no
such deposits in that region. This specimen was placed in the collection
of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, but according to Rhoads,
was afterward destroyed in a fire.
On examination of G. B. Shattuck’s work on the Pleistocene of Maryland
(Maryland Geol. Surv., Pliocene and Pleistocene volume, p. 95, plate I),
it seems that the coast of Virginia in Accomac County is occupied by the
Talbot formation. This, according to his theory, corresponds, at least
the part nearest the coast, with the Cape May formation of New Jersey.
Hence we might conclude that the walrus skull in question had become
buried, probably during the Wisconsin glacial stage. The present writer
regards the principal part of the Talbot terrace as being much older.
Messrs. W. B. Clark and B. L. Miller (Virginia Geol. Surv. Bull., No.
IV, p. 187) recognize the presence of the Talbot formation in Accomac
County, where it seems to reach a thickness of 100 feet; but the authors
add that part of this may belong to earlier Pleistocene formations.
NORTH CAROLINA.
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