No. 169 of the U. S. Geological Survey, on page 28, Dr. Ralph S. Tarr
stated that remains of a mastodon had been found a few hundred yards
north of this town, in a boggy place where a spring emerges from the
base of a gravel terrace. He did not tell what parts had been found. He
remarked that one could not be certain whether the bones had been washed
out of the gravel or had come from an animal which had mired there. In
geological age it must be referred to the last half of the Wisconsin
stage.
34. _Brookton, Tompkins County._—In the American Naturalist, volume V,
1871, page 314, C. Fred Hartt gave an account of the discovery of
mastodon bones at Mott’s Corners, on Six-mile Creek. This is the former
name of the present village of Brookton. Only 2 teeth and some fragments
of bones were secured. The locality is situated in a deep valley of the
creek, which had once been filled with drift, and through this the creek
had cut down to solid rock. Where the bones were found was a small
peat-bog consisting of a layer of peat varying from a few inches to 2
feet. This was full of sticks, pine knots, bark, etc., more or less
decayed. Below this peat was a layer, a few inches thick, composed of
clay mixed with pebbles and pieces of shale. In this were the teeth and
decayed bones. The whole was underlain by drift materials. Tarr, as
cited above, stated that mastodon remains had been found in a swamp in
the valley bottom at Brookton. He did not say when the discovery was
made, nor what was found. It is not unlikely that the two cases are the
same.
In 1871 (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. II, p. 58), Dr. Burt G. Wilder reported
that 5 teeth and many fragmentary bones had been found near Ithaca, in a
deposit of modified drift. The writer has been informed by Miss Pearl
Sheldon, of Cornell University, that these are the same remains as those
reported by Professor Hartt.
The mastodon found at Brookton could hardly have lived there before the
stage when the waters that gathered at the southern edge of the
retreating ice were reaching the sea by way of Mohawk and Hudson Rivers.
35. _Pony Hollow, Tompkins County._—In 1915 (Science, vol. XLI, pp.
98–99), Pearl Sheldon, of the Department of Geology in Cornell
University, reported that a tusk, probably of a mastodon, had been found
at Pony Hollow, 12 miles southwest of Ithaca, on the farm of Bert Drake.
This place, as shown on the Ithaca Quadrangle topographical sheet, is in
the southwest corner of the county. As the writer is informed by Miss
Sheldon, it is on Cantor Creek, near its junction with West Branch. The
tusk was met with in a gravel-pit at a depth of 24 feet. The radius of
curvature was between 2 and 3 feet, the circumference from 10 to 13
inches. It may have been the tusk of an elephant. The pit was in the
base of an extensive terrace which follows the valley-wall high above
the outwash gravel-plain occupying the floor of the valley. The reporter
thought that the terrace was not later in origin than the end of the ice
occupation of the valley, and might be earlier.
Miss Sheldon informed the writer that the terrace which contained the
mastodon tusk is too high in the valley to have been formed by water
backed up against the retreating ice-front. Furthermore, the locality is
south of the divide. It was suggested that during the retreat of the ice
the southward-flowing water in the Pony Hollow basin was backed up
somewhat by the ice in the Seneca basin. At any rate, the terrace and
the mastodon contained in it belong to the latter part of the Wisconsin
ice stage.
36. _Elmira, Chemung County._—Dr. John M. Clarke (60th Ann. Rep. New
York State Mus., p. 59) referred to reports of the eighteenth century to
the effect that tusks of proboscideans had been found in Chemung River,
one of them just below Elmira. It is very probable that some or all of
these had belonged to the mastodon.
Apparently all that can be said about the geological age of these
proboscideans is that they lived during or after the last half of the
Wisconsin drift stage.
37. _Lodi, Seneca County._—In the American Museum of Natural History,
New York, there are second and third upper mastodon molars, recorded as
having been found at Lodi. The town is on the eastern shore of Seneca
Lake. This animal belonged to the last half of the Wisconsin stage, or
to a later one. Possibly it was living there at the early period when
the impounded waters of the Finger Lake region were discharging through
Susquehanna River.
38. _Macedon, Wayne County._—Dr. J. M. Clarke, in 1903 (Bull. 69, N. Y.
State Mus., p. 930) reported for Professor H. L. Fairchild, that there
are in the University of Rochester a few mastodon teeth from this place.
There is no information on record about the geology of the place where
they were found. The animal belonged to a relatively late stage of the
Pleistocene and may have lived close to the beginning of the Recent. The
glacier had withdrawn near to or within the basin of Lake Ontario.
39. _Seneca Castle, Ontario County._—Professor Edward Hitchcock jr., in
1885 (Science, vol. VI, p. 450), announced the discovery of what was
supposed to be remains of mastodon at the bottom of a peat morass,
lately drained, at the town named. This place is near Flint Creek. No
teeth and no part of the skull were found. The remains were taken to
Amherst College. With these bones was found also an antler of an elk. In
a letter written December 21, 1918, Dr. F. B. Loomis, of Amherst, states
that he regards these bones as those of an elephant.
In Dr. J. M. Clarke’s report of 1903, on page 931, Mr. H. J. Peck gave
an account of this mastodon, together with a plate representing the way
in which the bones were scattered. They were found at a depth of about 3
feet and are shown to have been lying in a deposit of clay and marl,
above which came in succession clay and sand, sand, peat, and muck.
Beneath the bones were, in order, sand, blue clay, sandy clay, and a
thin layer of sand resting on boulder clay.
The stage at or after which this mastodon or elephant lived was probably
that represented by Fairchild’s plate 38.
40. _Perkinsville (Portway), Steuben County._—Dr. John M. Clarke, in
1908 (61st Ann. Rep. New York State Mus., vol. I, p. 44), reported the
discovery of a part of a skeleton of a mastodon in a large swamp 0.75
mile north of Portway railroad station. The swamp occupies a depression
in a mass of morainic drift. At the surface is from 6 to 12 inches of
black muck, beneath which is a bed of nearly white marl from 6 inches to
6 feet in thickness. The bones were lying 4 or 5 rods from the border of
the swamp. Those found were in a fine state of preservation. Among them
was one ramus of the lower jaw with teeth.
This and the following specimen lived after the Wisconsin glacier had
withdrawn about halfway from its terminal moraine to the shore of Lake
Ontario.
41. _Wayland, Steuben County._—In 1874 (Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist.,
vol. XVII, p. 91), a report by Dr. J. G. Hunt, of Philadelphia, was
presented, which dealt with the contents of the stomach of a mastodon
said to have been found at Wayland. No statement was made as to the
skeleton of the animal, or the exact place where it had been discovered.
No remains of trees of any kind were detected, but stems and leaves of
mosses, confervoid filaments, a fragment supposed to belong to a rush,
woody tissue, and bark of herbaceous plants.
42. _Pittsford, Monroe County._—In 1831 (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XIX, p.
358), Mr. J. A. Guernsey, of Pittsford, wrote that a part of a tusk,
supposed to belong to a mastodon, had been found on the bank of
Irondequoit Creek, 2.5 miles east of the town. The part secured was 7.5
feet long, and the whole tusk was thought to have been about 9 feet
long. The figure accompanying the description seems to indicate a
mastodon tusk rather than that of an elephant, but one can not be
certain about the matter. A much decayed cervical vertebra also was
found.
James Hall, in 1843 (Geol. 4th Dist., p. 364), reported that in the town
of Perinton there had been found in the bank of a small stream, in
gravel and sand, a tusk and several teeth. This place appears to be, or
to have been, very near Pittsford. At Perinton, too, was found a tooth
of the elephant _Elephas primigenius_, as mentioned on another page. It
was near here probably that there were found parts of two skeletons of
the peccary _Platygonus compressus_, as noted in its proper place.
Inasmuch as all these animals, as well as those found nearer Rochester,
were buried in deposits overlying Wisconsin drift, they must have lived
after the withdrawal of the ice beyond Rochester, and at a time when the
region had taken the present aspect or nearly so.
43. _Rochester, Monroe County._—In 1842 (Nat. Hist. N. Y. Mamm., p.
103), J. E. De Kay stated that in 1817 remains of mastodon had been
found in Rochester, 4 feet below the surface, in a hollow or
water-course. He did not give his authority for this statement. James
Hall, in 1843 (Geol. 4th Dist., p. 364), reported that in 1838, during
the excavation of the Genesee Valley Canal, at its junction with Sophia
street, various bones of a mastodon had been discovered. They are said
to have been intermingled with gravel and covered by clay and loam,
above which was a deposit of shell marl. The bones were placed in the
State Museum at Albany. C. D. (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XXXIII, 1837, p.
201) says that these bones were lying on and in a hard body of blue clay
and about 2 feet above the limestone, which itself was polished. Clarke
(Bull. 69, New York State Mus., p. 931) reported, on the authority of H.
L. Ward, that a few remains of mastodon had been found at Mount Hope
cemetery. In the collection of the University of Rochester is a
proboscidean rib 837 mm. long, which is labeled as having been found
January 27, 1913, at the corner of Charlotte boulevard and Miller
street. It lay in gravel 12 feet below the surface. It seems to the
writer to belong to _Mammut americanum_.
44. _Scottsburg, Livingston County._—Clarke (Bull. 69, etc., p. 932)
reported that 20 bones and various fragments of bones of a mastodon had
been collected here by F. H. Bradley and H. A. Green, and presented to
the Yale collection by R. S. Fellows. No additional information was
furnished. These remains include a hindermost lower molar (Cat. No.
11714) that had not yet come into use. The animal may be supposed to
have lived during or after the last half of the Wisconsin stage.
45. _Fowlerville, Livingston County._—Dr. John M. Clarke (Bull. 69,
etc., p. 932) stated, on the authority of Mr. H. J. Peck, that 3 or 4
teeth, tusks, and other bones, badly broken, had been found, in 1886, in
an excavation on the bank of Genesee River, 80 feet above the water. No
further information has been recorded.
From Dr. I. Edward Line, Rochester, N. Y., the writer has received a
photograph of an upper right penultimate molar, little worn, which he
reports as having been found in 1887, near Genesee River, on the road
from Avon to Fowlerville. It was discovered in a marshy part of the farm
of Robert Boyd and was exhumed by the late Dr. William Nishet, of Avon.
Other teeth, a tusk, and fragments of bone were found, some of which,
Dr. Line states, were taken to Harvard University by Professor F. W.
Putnam. Quite certainly this was the same mastodon as that reported by
Mr. Peck. The animal could not have lived here until after a stage
represented by Fairchild’s plate 37 (Bull. 127, New York State Mus.).
46. _Geneseo, Livingston County._—In 1827 (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XII,
p. 380), Jeremiah Van Rensselaer reported that, in 1826, the skull,
tusks, lower jaws with teeth, pelvis, and many other bones had been
found at Geneseo. Later (1841) Lyell and James Hall made excavations at
the same place, but discovered only some fragments of the skull and of
other bones. These were at a depth of about 5 feet and were mixed with
marl and yet existing fresh-water shells. Over all was a layer of muck
(Lyell, “Travels in North America,” vol. I, p. 55). Hall (Geol. 4th
Dist., p. 363, fig. 173) published a figure of one of the teeth, a
hindermost molar. The remark as to the geological age of the Fowlerville
specimen applies to this one.
47. _Nunda, Livingston County._—Clarke (Bull. 69, p. 932) stated, on the
authority of Charles E. Beecher, that 10 bones and fragments of a
mastodon had been secured here, and presented to Yale University
collection. No exact locality and no geological information were
furnished. The geological age is quite certainly late Wisconsin or still
later.
48. _Belvidere, Allegany County._—In the American Geologist, vol.
XXXIII, 1904, page 60, an anonymous note states that some mastodon
remains, 3 ribs and 4 vertebræ, had been unearthed at this place by
James Johnson, of Bradford, and Alban Stewart, of the Smithsonian
Institution. Nothing was said as to the exact locality and geological
conditions. The time of the animal’s life could hardly have been earlier
than the last half of the Wisconsin stage.
49. _Pike, Wyoming County._—In 1876 (Guide to Genesee Valley Mus.,
Letchworth Park, Castile, N. Y., 1907, pp. 5–6), a part of a skull, the
tusks, a few vertebræ, and some foot-bones were found on the farm of
Charles Dennis, on the outskirts of the village of Pike. They were met
with in making a ditch and hence were probably in a marsh. Their
geological age is that of the last half of the Wisconsin stage or later.
50. _Attica, Wyoming County._—In 1887 (6th Ann. Rep. State Geologist,
for 1886, p. 34), J. M. Clarke described briefly the finding of supposed
mastodon bones at this place. A tusk had been encountered while a trench
for a water-main was being dug on Genesee street. In 1888 (41st Ann.
Rep. State Mus., for 1887, pp. 388–390, plate), Clarke reported the
results of further digging. The tusk was exhumed, as well as two ribs
and a fragment of the zygomatic arch. Nothing was found that
distinguished the remains from those of an elephant. The fragments were
in a bog-hole and scattered over a space about 20 by 25 feet. Under the
made ground was first a layer of loam 5 inches thick, then came in
succession 1 foot 2 inches of clayey muck and 1 foot 5 inches of
unlaminated clay and an undetermined thickness of laminated clay. The
bones lay in the unlaminated clay, at a depth of 2 feet 6 inches from
the natural surface. With the bones was what was thought to be an
ankle-bone of an elk. At a distance of 75 feet was another bog-hole, 75
feet in diameter, which was filled with muck lying on compact laminated
clay. The muck had a maximum thickness of 4 feet. At the deepest place
was found a piece of pottery and, beneath and around it, about 30
fragments of thoroughly burned charcoal.
The proboscidean remains here described must have been buried after (how
long after one can not say) the Wisconsin glacier had retired about
two-thirds the way from its southward limit to the shore of Lake
Ontario.
51. _Leroy, Genesee County._—J. E. De Kay, in 1842 (Zool. N. Y., Mamm.,
p. 104), stated that in 1841 a mastodon tooth weighing 2 pounds had been
found in a bed of marl 3 miles south of Leroy. No other information
appears to have been recorded.
The mastodons found here and at Stafford and Batavia could have lived
only after the ice-sheet had retired beyond these places. About this
time the waters of the Finger Lake region found an outlet westward to
the Mississippi by way of lakes Warren and Chicago.
52. _Stafford, Genesee County._—James Hall, in 1843 (Geol. 4th Dist., p.
364), reported that some years previously a small molar tooth had been
found at this place. It was beneath muck and upon a deposit of clay and
sand. There was found also a quantity of hair-like confervæ, of a
dun-brown color, which resembled hair so closely that a close
examination was necessary to determine its real nature.
53. _Batavia, Genesee County._—In 1904 (Bull. 69, New York State Museum,
p. 932), Clarke reported for H. L. Ward, that in 1897 two tusks, a part
of a skull with teeth, several vertebræ, and ribs had been found here.
Nothing more is known about this case.
54. _Holley, Orleans County._—In 1843, James Hall (Geol. 4th Dist., p.
364) reported that during the excavation of the Erie Canal, a large
molar tooth was found in a swamp near Holley. This, according to Clarke,
was about 1820. At the earliest time assignable, this mastodon lived
after the Wisconsin glacier had withdrawn nearly into the basin of Lake
Ontario. It may have had its existence nearly up to the Recent epoch.
55. _Medina, Orleans County._—In the Buffalo Society of Natural History
is a part of the left ramus of the lower jaw of a mastodon, labeled as
having been found in a swamp near Medina. It contains the second and
third true molars. The remark about the geological age of the Holley
mastodon is applicable to this one.
56. _Niagara, Niagara County._—In 1842 (Zool. N. Y., Mamm., p. 104), De
Kay stated that a mastodon tooth had been found in digging a mill-race
on Goat Island, 12 or 13 feet below the surface. Lyell, in 1843 (Ann.
Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. XII, p. 127), alluded to the occurrence of remains
of mastodon in a fresh-water formation on the right bank of the Niagara
River at the Falls. The formation appears to have consisted of gravel.
These are possibly the same remains as those mentioned by De Kay. Hall
(Geol. 4th Dist., p. 364) stated that the deposit was a fine gravel and
loam containing fresh-water shells, and evidently of fluviatile origin.
These deposits were noted by W. E. Logan (Geol. Canada, 1863, pp.
913–914). On the Canadian side of the gorge below the Falls, 16 species
of fresh-water mollusks were found in the sand, evidently where they had
lived.
At the museum of Davis Brothers, at Niagara Falls, Mr. B. U. Davis told
the writer that he owned 2 mastodon teeth which had been found in
digging for the foundations of the Tower Hotel, which faces the Falls
park.
Mastodons could have lived where Niagara Falls is now located only after
the Wisconsin ice-sheet had retired far enough to permit the waters of
Lake Iroquois to fall somewhat below those of Lake Erie, the shrinkage
of the latter to its present basin, and the formation of dry land or
land not too swampy around the present Niagara Falls.
57. _Hinsdale, Cattaraugus County._—Hall (op. cit., p. 364) stated that
at this place a tusk, with some horns of deer, had been found in gravel
and sand, 16 feet below the surface. Clarke (Bull. 69, etc., p. 933)
mentions this case and suggests that the antlers were possibly those of
the elk. The tusk may quite as well have been that of an elephant.
Lyell (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. XII, 1843, p. 127) referred to this
discovery as showing mastodon bones at the highest elevation known at
that time, 1,500 feet above the sea.
58. _Conewango, Cattaraugus County._—In 1908 (60th Ann. Rep. State Mus.,
p. 60), Clarke reported that part of a mastodon skeleton, consisting of
from 40 to 50 bones, mostly vertebræ and foot-bones, had been unearthed
in 1906 from the bank of the State ditch along Conewango Creek, close to
the boundary between Cattaraugus and Chautauqua Counties. The remains
lay on a shelf of hard clay. They were discovered and reported by C. N.
Hoard and W. H. Hoard. The locality was probably not far from the town
indicated. This animal is to be referred to the last half of the
Wisconsin glacial stage; that is, to the Wabash stage.
59. _Buffalo, Erie County._—In 1809 (Phila. Med. and Phys. Jour., vol.
II, p. 157), Dr. B. S. Barton reported that a tooth of a mastodon had
been found on Buffalo Creek, near its mouth. Of this mastodon one can
only say that it lived late in Wisconsin times, not earlier probably
than when Lake Iroquois became the immediate predecessor of Lake
Ontario.
60. _Jamestown, Chautauqua County._—In 1872 (Amer. Naturalist, vol. VI,
p. 178), Mr. T. A. Cheney announced the finding of parts of 2 skeletons
of the mastodon, in a swamp about a mile north of Jamestown. One was a
small animal, probably a young one, the larger one an adult. Of the
latter, 6 teeth in the lower jaw, the tusks, and various other bones
were secured. The remains were lying in a soil composed of peat and
marl, at a depth of 4 feet. A great mass, 8 or 9 bushels, of broken
twigs was found and taken to be the contents of the animal’s stomach.
This mastodon belonged to the last half of the Wisconsin glacial stage.
61. _Westfield, Chautauqua County._—Dr. J. M. Clarke, in 1903 (Bull. 69,
etc., p. 933), reported the discovery of a part of a skeleton at
Westfield. It was on the property of Mrs. Alice Peacock, alongside the
Nickel Plate Railroad. A tusk, 6 feet 2 inches long and highly curved,
17 ribs, 8 pelvic and lumbar vertebræ, a patella, and parts of the
scapula and pelvis were secured. The bones lay on a pavement of heavy
boulders and under several feet of black clayey muck. This animal could
have lived here only after the Wisconsin ice-sheet had withdrawn within,
or nearly within, the basin of Lake Erie.
NEW JERSEY.
(Maps 5, 6–A.)
1. _Mannington Township, Salem County._—In Rutgers College, New
Brunswick, New Jersey, is a mounted mastodon said to have been found on
the Hackett farm, Chestnut Hill, in Mannington. This township is
northwest of the town of Salem. It is stated that about 75 per cent of
the bones are present in the mounted skeleton; the missing parts are
restored in plaster or some other material. Rhoads (Mamm, Penn. N. J.,
1903, p. 235) was informed by Professor Valiant that this skeleton was
excavated from a bed of gray marl, at a depth of from 6 to 8 feet below
the surface. According to Lewis and Kümmel’s geological map of New
Jersey, 1912, this region appears to be overlain by the Cape May
formation (see also Salisbury and Knapp, vol. VIII, Final Rep. Geol.
Surv. New Jersey, p. 194).
2. _Harrisonville, Gloucester County._—In 1869, Cope (Cook’s Geol. New
Jersey, p. 740) stated that a mastodon had been found at this place, but
no details were furnished. Harrisonville is on Oldman’s Creek, and along
this are distributed, according to the map above cited, materials
belonging to the Pensauken formation. Bridgeton, Pensauken, and Cape May
deposits are, however, not far away (Salisbury and Knapp, op. cit., pp.
31, 96, 97, 194, 198).
3. _Mullica Hill, Gloucester County._—In Cook’s “Geology of New Jersey,”
Cope reported also that mastodon remains had been found at Mullica Hill,
on Raccoon Creek, but here again no details were given. Following the
map cited, and Salisbury and Knapp, page 194, we find Cape May deposits
at the town, but Pensauken is not far away, and it is not known exactly
where the mastodon remains were met with.
4. _Woodbury, Gloucester County._—Mr. Samuel N. Rhoads (Mamm. Penn. N.
J., 1903, p. 235) recorded the discovery of a mastodon near Woodbury. It
was found on Mantua Creek and was in the possession of Dr. J. C. Curry,
of Woodbury. Mantua Creek flows south of Woodbury, about 2.5 miles
distant. On the map cited the region is indicated as being covered
mostly by Pensauken materials, but there is some Cape May (Salisbury and
Knapp, pp. 100, 191). The Cape May is on a lower level along the
streams.
From Dr. Curry the writer learns that the remains of this mastodon
passed into the possession of Mr. Herbert Twells, of Woodbury, New
Jersey. Neither of these gentlemen is able to furnish any further
information.