1. Newbern, Hale County.—In August 1914, there was received at the U. S. National Museum, from Mr. J. W. White, of Newbern, a lower left first incisor of a horse. This, with a lower molar of a species of Bison, had been found in a creek. The incisor is somewhat worn, but still retained a part of the cup. The grinding-face is 14 mm. from side to side. The species can not be determined.
2. Bogue Chitto, Dallas County.—In the U. S. National Museum is an upper right true molar, first or second, of a horse, found at this place in 1883, by L. C. Johnson, of the U. S. Geological Survey. The tooth is identified as that of Equus leidyi. The enamel is much crenated. At the same place was found a tooth (a lower molar) of Elephas imperator, and teeth of Mammut americanum. It seems to the writer that the presence of these species indicates that the deposits along Bogue Chitto belong to the early part of the Pleistocene, about equivalent to the Aftonian.
MISSISSIPPI.
1. Orizaba, Tippah County.—In the U. S. National Museum (No. 1907) is a fossil tooth of a horse, a third or fourth right premolar, found apparently not far from this little town. It is labeled as having been picked up at Lander’s mill, 9 miles south of Ripley, on Cane Creek, out of débris of Cretaceous marl, and given to Dr. T. E. Stanton. How it came to be mingled with the marl is not known. The tooth is only moderately worn, the height being 75 mm. The length of the grinding-surface is 28 mm., the width 27 mm. It has the enamel unusually strongly folded. The tooth is referred provisionally to Equus leidyi.
2. Natchez, Adams County.—Elsewhere will be found an account of the discovery of fossil vertebrates near Natchez by Dr. M. W. Dickerson (p. 390), among which were found horse-teeth, referred to two species. One of these horses, represented, as supposed, by 12 teeth, was at first called by Leidy Equus americanus (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1847, vol. III, p. 265, plate II); but later Equus complicatus (Proc. cit., 1858, p. 11). In 1901 (Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. XIV, p. 109, fig. 7), Gidley selected one of the teeth, that of Leidy’s plate II, figs. 1, 6, referred to above, as the special type of the species Equus complicatus. These Natchez teeth are now in the collection of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.
Some of the teeth from Natchez were described by Leidy in 1860 (Holmes’s Post-Pliocene Fossils of South Carolina, pp. 100–105, plate XV, figs. 11–15, plate XVI, figs. 24–26, 30, 31) as Equus complicatus. Others (pp. 100105, plate XV, figs. 17, 18, plate XVI, fig. 27) were referred to a hitherto unrecognized species Equus fraternus.
TENNESSEE.
1. Rogersville, Hawkins County.—In the U. S. National Museum (No. 520) is a single horse-tooth found many years ago in a crevice in a marble quarry at this place. It is referred by the writer to Equus leidyi (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. LVIII, p. 84). With it were sent a canine tooth and a few bones of a peccary, described as Mylohyus setiger (p. 394).
2. Whitesburg, Hamblen County.—In 1885 Mr. Ira Sayles collected at this place a lot of bones and teeth of vertebrates, described by the present writer (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. LVIII, p. 87). Among them is an upper right second premolar of a horse, identified as Equus leidyi. A list of the species will be found on page 395. E. littoralis also is present.
3. Lookout Mountain, Hamilton County.—In the American Museum of Natural History, New York, is an upper second molar tooth brought from Lookout Mountain (Gidley, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. XIV, p. 121). Under what conditions this tooth was found have not been recorded. It belongs probably to the species Equus littoralis.
4. Nashville, Davidson County.—From William Edward Myer, of Nashville, Tennessee, the writer received, June 26, 1920, some fossils collected near Nashville, about 300 yards upstream from Lock A, in Cumberland River, at a depth of nearly 30 feet beneath a bank of gravel. Below this gravel is a bed of sand apparently 2 or 3 feet thick and this is underlain by another bed of gravel apparently about 2 feet thick. This itself lies on bed-rock at about the level of low water in the river. In the lower gravel were found a lower molar of Equus leidyi, a part of a left femur of a large horse, and an antler of a small undetermined and probably undescribed deer. In the layer of sand were discovered a heel bone of a camel, a part of a tooth of a young mastodon, and some fragments of turtle bones. The equine tooth belongs to the right side. It has a height of about 80 mm., a length of 28 mm. on the grinding-surface, and a width of 16 mm. It is black, and like the others thoroughly fossilized.
The fragment of femur appears to have belonged to a horse perhaps larger than Equus leidyi. It begins at the lower border of the third trochanter and descends to the lower part of the deep fossa for the plantaris muscle. Immediately above the fossa the side-to-side diameter of the bone is 50 mm., the fore-and-aft 60 mm. In a horse of medium size these diameters are respectively 45 mm. and 53 mm.
Later there was discovered at the same locality the upper two-thirds of the right metatarsal. The fragment is 230 mm. long. The upper articular end is somewhat injured; 75 mm. below the upper end the fore-and-aft diameter is 45 mm., the side-to-side diameter 38 mm. The latter diameter was somewhat greater, as the bone appears to be slightly crushed. The specimen is referred to Equus complicatus. Probably the femur mentioned above belonged to this species.
KENTUCKY.
1. Bigbone Lick, Boone County.—In their report published in 1831 (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XX, p. 371), Cooper, Smith, and Dekay reported they found in the collection from this place large teeth and bones of a horse. They regarded these as being of equal antiquity with the extinct animals associated with them. In 1847 (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. III, p. 263, 264) Leidy stated that there were in the Academy 10 permanent molars of a horse from Bigbone Lick. These he referred to Equus curvidens. In 1853 (Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. VII, p. 263) he wrote that several teeth supposed to have come from this locality had possibly been obtained elsewhere.
In 1851 (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., p. 140), he spoke of foot-bones of the horse, a calcaneum and first phalanx, from the same place. In 1860 (Holmes’s “Post-Pliocene Fossils of South Carolina,” p. 104), Leidy mentioned several horse-bones from Bigbone Lick presented to the American Philosophical Society by President Jefferson. In Rochester University are 2 hoof phalanges labeled from Bigbone Lick. Osborn (“Age of Mammals,” p. 478) puts down Equus from Bigbone Lick as being doubtful. There appears to be no good reason for this.
The remains of horses from this locality appear all to belong to Equus complicatus.
2. Monday’s Landing, Mercer County.—From Professor Arthur M. Miller, of the University of Kentucky, the writer has received for examination a much-worn upper left molar or premolar of a horse found at the place named. It was met with in a fissure filled with crystallized calcite, near the bank of Kentucky River. The vein of calcite was about 6 feet wide. Similar veins at this locality have been worked down to a depth of 200 or 300 feet. A part of a lower jaw of a deer-like animal was found in one of these veins. The horse-tooth is badly worn, but it appears to have belonged to a small species, the fore-and-aft length of the crown being only 19 mm. The enamel of the anterior lake is considerably complicated. It is impossible, from the lack of other fossil remains, to determine the geological age of this horse.