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
The Charleston Museum contains considerable parts of the skeleton of a
megatherium of which no record has been preserved. In Holmes’s
“Post-Pleiocene Fossils of South Carolina,” page 111, plate XX, figures
7 to 7_b_, Leidy mentioned briefly and figured two small fragments of
lower teeth of _Mylodon harlani_, which had been obtained from the
Pleistocene beds of Ashley River. The tooth figured was originally
described as _Eubradys antiquus_. Figures of it are found also in the
seventh volume of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, plate XVI,
figures 21_a_ to 21_c_.
The Pleistocene geology of South Carolina is discussed on pp. 361 to
368.
GEORGIA.
(Map 3.)
1. _Brunswick, Glynn County._—In 1842 (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila.,
vol. I, p. 189), Richard Harlan gave to the Academy of Natural Sciences
a number of bones which had been collected in the Brunswick Canal by Mr.
J. H. Couper and sent to the Academy. Among these was a number of bones
of _Megatherium_. A part of a lower jaw contained 4 teeth. A list of the
bones is presented by Couper on page 44 of William B. Hodgson’s memoir
on _Megatherium_ published in 1846. There were, besides the part of a
mandible, parts of 2 maxillæ without teeth, parts of 6 or 7 femora, a
part of an ilium, several dorsal vertebræ, and several teeth. Lyell
(Second Visit, ed. 2, 1850, vol. I, p. 347) stated that a part of a
skeleton of a _Megatherium_, dug out in cutting the canal, was so near
the surface that it was penetrated by the roots of a pine tree. Most of
this material was sent to the Academy of Natural Sciences at
Philadelphia (Leidy, Smithson. Contrib. Knowl., vol. VII, art. 5, p.
54).
The accompanying fossils will be named on page 370.
2. _Skidaway Island, near Savannah, Chatham County._—The earliest
announcement of the discovery of _Megatherium_ in North America was made
by Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill in 1824 (Ann. Lyc. Nat. Hist. N. Y., vol. I,
pp. 58–61, plate VI). The announcement was based on a number of teeth
which had been sent to him from Skidaway Island. In the same volume, on
pages 114 to 124, plate VIII, William Cooper described teeth and bones
which had been sent to him from the same locality by Joseph E.
Habersham. Cooper had some reason to conclude that all the bones and
teeth found up to that time had come from the same individual. In 1828
(Annals cited, vol. II, pp. 267–270) Cooper described additional
materials which he had received from Skidaway Island.
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