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
Mr. Arthur C. Veatch (Jour. Geology, vol. VI, pp. 257–272) has given an
account of changes which have occurred along the Ohio River in Spencer
County, Indiana, about 25 miles above Evansville, since late Pliocene
times. According to his investigations, the valley of the river was
deeply excavated into the Carboniferous rocks during the Ozarkian
uplift. Since that time, during the Pleistocene epoch, that great valley
has been, to a large extent, filled up by alluvial deposits. While the
greater part of these deposits were laid down during glacial stages, it
is not improbable that some were made during the Aftonian stage and that
a part of these yet exist along the borders of the river. It is still
more probable that Sangamon beds yet exist there and that the bones
Leidy described were found here.
Many bones of the megalonyx were described by Leidy (Smithson. Contrib.
Knowl., vol. VII, article V) from a locality 5 or 6 miles below
Henderson, Kentucky, not much more than 10 miles in a straight line from
the mouth of Pigeon Creek. The bone-bed was said by Dr. D. D. Owen (op.
cit., p. 7) to be about 5 feet above ordinary low-water. In the same bed
Owen found abundant remains of the deer. He seemed to regard this
bone-bed as a continuation of that existing at Pigeon Creek.
_Megalonyx_ has been found at Bigbone Lick, between Cincinnati and
Louisville, associated with _Equus complicatus_, two species of extinct
bisons, and the Virginia deer, in deposits overlying Illinoian drift and
hence belonging, in part at least, to the Sangamon. These deposits are,
however, at a higher level, being now submerged only at times of very
high-water in the Ohio River. If these and the Pigeon Creek beds are of
the same age, we may suppose that the animals entombed at the latter
place were buried low down in the deep valley along the river banks,
while those at Bigbone became covered up around salt springs at a higher
level.
ILLINOIS.
(Map 3.)
1. _Urbana, Champaign County._—In the fall of 1909 a claw phalange of
_Megalonyx jeffersonii_ was found near Urbana by Mr. Lindley, of Urbana.
An excavation was being made at the eastern end of Crystal Lake, and the
tooth, as reported to the writer by Professor C. C. Adams, was
discovered in a blue clay. The writer has seen the tooth. The extreme
length in a straight line had been close to 145 mm. The greatest
thickness was 42 mm. This has been figured by the writer (Iowa. Geol.
Surv., vol XXIII, plate III, figs. 5, 6, text-figs. 28–29).
Inasmuch as all this region is covered by Wisconsin drift and this tooth
was found in a deposit lying on the top of this drift, there can be no
reason for denying that this species lived after, probably long after,
the withdrawal of the Wisconsin ice. Two occurrences of the same species
in Ohio confirm the conclusion.
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