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
Eager (op. cit., p. 73) stated that in 1803 mastodon remains had been
found on a farm a mile east of Montgomery. These bones were dug out by
Peale in 1805 or 1806, and Eager, then a boy, observed the work from day
to day. Nothing was said about what remains were secured, or about the
geological conditions; but Graham wrote that 3 or 4 ribs were found in a
swamp at a depth of 8 feet.
R. Peale, writing in 1803 (“Disquisition on Mammoth,” pp. 27–29),
reported that his father exhumed mastodon bones on a farm belonging to
T. Barber, where 8 years before 4 ribs had been found in digging a pit.
One may suppose that only one place is in question and that Eager was
wrong in his date. Peale secured almost an entire set of ribs, two
rotten tusks, 3 or 4 small teeth, and some other parts. At the bottom of
the excavation there was a shell marl; above this there was probably
peat or muck.
Dr. Graham further stated that about 3 miles east of Ward’s Bridge (now
Montgomery) some other bones had been discovered. This was quite
certainly near the village of Berea, where swamps are indicated on the
topographical map of that quadrangle.
19. _Hamptonburg, Orange County._—Eager (op. cit., p. 73) states that in
1845 mastodon remains had been found in this town on the farm of Jesse
C. Cleve, but no further information was furnished.
20. _Bullville, Orange County._—Eager (op. cit., p. 73) says that in
1794 remains of a mastodon had been found about 5 miles west of
Montgomery, just east of the residence of Archibald Crawford, and near
the line of the Cochecton turnpike. It appears probable that the place
was east of Bullville on the Dwaar Kill. What was found was not stated.
In 1830 (Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc., vol. III, p. 478, plate XVII), J. D.
Godman described a skull of a mastodon which, he said, had been
disinterred a short time previously by Archibald Crawford, about 12
miles from Newburgh. Besides the head, some bones from the trunk and
limbs were secured. Whether or not two discoveries had been made, and
whether, if two, the localities were near each other, it is now
impossible to say with confidence.
Somewhere about Bullville, possibly farther north or northeast, the
elder Peale (R. Peale, Hist. Disquis., p. 30) secured some mastodon
bones. In arriving at the place, he crossed Wallkill River at the falls
(Walden) and “ascended into a rudely cultivated country about 20 miles
from the Hudson.” The bones were found in a morass on the farm of Peter
Millspaw. The lower jaw found there was mentioned and figured by Hays
(Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc., vol. IV, 1834, p. 321).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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