FINDS OF RANGIFER IN THE PLEISTOCENE OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA.
GRINNELL LAND.
Dumbbell Harbor.—In 1877 (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 4, vol. XX, p. 488), Fielden published a paper on the post-Tertiary beds of Grinnell Land and north Greenland. In 1878 (Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. Lond., vol. XXXIV, p. 566), Fielden and De Rance presented a report on the same subject.
At a station in latitude 82° 30′ N., in beds at an elevation of 400 feet, there were secured meager remains of Ovibos moschatus and Phoca hispida. At another station, in latitude 82° 25′, there were obtained remains of Rangifer tarandus, Ovibos moschatus, and Phoca barbata. The invertebrate fauna was found to be identical with that now existing there. In case the beds are Pleistocene they are probably those of a late stage.
ONTARIO.
1. Toronto, York County.—In 1899 (Ottawa Naturalist, vol. XII, p. 195), Coleman stated that horns of the caribou were common in the Carleton Bar, just west of Toronto. This bar belonged to the Iroquois beach. In the same bar near York, east of Toronto, mammoth teeth had been found. In 1904 (Jour. Geol., vol. XV, p. 366), the same writer states that antlers are very common at Toronto Junction. This is probably the same locality as that spoken of as Carleton Bar.
In 1901 (Jour. Geol., vol. IX, pp. 290, 298), Coleman wrote that a shed horn of a caribou had been found at Taylor’s brickyard. This is nearly a mile north of the Gerard street bridge in Toronto (Amer. Geologist, vol. XIII, p. 87). It was in a blue peaty clay, in which were found also unios and wood. This clay is about 4 feet 6 inches thick and near the top of the warm-climate beds. Notwithstanding the presence of the antler of a caribou, the stratum is assigned by Coleman to the warm-climate beds, because of the character of the vegetation. At present the caribou is not known to come nearer than 150 or 200 miles to Toronto.
VERMONT.
1. Woodbury, Washington County.—In 1910 (Rep. Geol. Surv. Vermont, p. 7), Professor G. H. Perkins stated that there are in the State Cabinet at Burlington a fully developed antler and a part of the upper jaw, with five molars, of Rangifer caribou found at Woodbury in a peat-bog at a depth of 7 feet. Probably the animal lived at about the close of the Pleistocene epoch. The species has not been known in the State since historical times.
CONNECTICUT.
1. New Haven, New Haven County.—In 1875 (Amer. Jour. Sci., ser. 3, vol. X), Professor J. D. Dana gave an account of the finding of a humerus and a tibia of a reindeer in the Quinnipiac Valley, near New Haven. The humerus was discovered in a bed of clay at a depth of 11 feet; the tibia at a depth of 7 feet. The two bones belonged to different individuals. Marsh, as quoted by Dana, thought that the tibia resembled more closely that of Rangifer tarandus of Europe than it did that of R. caribou, but that the humerus was more similar to that of the caribou. Dana concluded that the clays had been laid down after the glacier had retreated from the valley, but while it was yet near enough to send down ice-floes. Woodworth (17th Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. Surv., pt. 1, p. 978) was inclined to refer the clays to some pre-Wisconsin time.
NEW YORK.
1. Ossining, Westchester County.—In 1859, Dr. Joseph Leidy (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. XI, p. 194) read a letter from Dr. G. J. Fisher, of Ossining (then Sing Sing), in which was reported the finding of an antler of a reindeer in that vicinity, in excavating a peat-bed, 6 feet from the surface. The peat-bed had an area of about an acre, was surrounded by high ground, and looked as if it had been the site of an ancient lake. It is to be regretted that the situation of the place was not more accurately given.
Woodworth (Bull. 84, New York State Mus., 1905, p. 187) remarked that he did not know the circumstances under which the reindeer remains had been found; but its occurrence there was consonant with his views of the non-submergence of the lower Hudson valley. On the other hand, there appears to be no good reason why the caribou might not have occupied that region step by step as the glacier retired, and have remained there long enough for its bones to become buried in mucks overlying the deposits laid down in the Hudson while it was at sea-level.
2. Racket River, St. Lawrence County.—In 1869 (Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. VII, p. 377), Leidy mentioned the occurrence of caribou (“Cervus tarandus”) remains at Racket River, basing his statement on a remark of S. L. Mitchill (Cat. Organ. Remains, 1826, p. 26). On the same page Leidy referred to Mitchill’s skull of the elk found at Racket River, and to De Kay’s figure of it. In De Kay’s description (Zool. N. Y. Mamm., p. 120) of the skull he stated that it bore a label in Mitchill’s handwriting purporting that the skull belonged to the reindeer. It looks, therefore, very much as if the crediting of the caribou to this locality is due to an error of identification on the part of Mitchill; on the other hand, it is barely possible that Mitchill had remains of both animals from the locality.
NEW JERSEY.
1. Vincentown, Burlington County.—In 1869 (Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. VII, p. 377, plate XXVIII, fig. 9), Leidy described and figured a part of an antler of a reindeer found at Vincentown. It was discovered 4 feet from the surface in soil overlying greensand. According to Lewis and Kümmel’s geological map, the region about Vincentown is occupied by Cape May deposits resting on Manasquan marl, of Cretaceous age. It may be supposed, therefore, that this reindeer was in that region during the prevalence of the Wisconsin glacial stage (Geol. Surv. New Jersey, vol. VIII, p. 183). This antler is peculiar in having no brow-tine, in having the bez-tine placed at an unusual height, 6 inches above the base, and in having no tine arise from the rear of the shaft up to a height of about 2 feet from the base. Where the last-mentioned tine might be expected is simply a sharp ridge. Leidy thought that the antler resembled more closely that of the barren-ground reindeer than that of the woodland reindeer. It may, however, belong to a distinct but as yet unnamed species.
2. Trenton, Mercer County.—In 1884 (17th Ann. Rep. Peabody Mus., Harvard Univ., for 1883, p. 372), Professor F. W. Putnam reported as follows on a fragment of antler of Rangifer found at Trenton by Dr. C. C. Abbott: “A piece of worked antler, probably a handle to a stone knife, from the gravel in the railroad cut where the human tooth (No. 27798) was found. Collected and presented by Dr. C. C. Abbott.”
This specimen is mentioned by Mr. S. N. Rhoads (Mamm. of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, 1903, p. 241) as belonging to Rangifer grœnlandicus. From Dr. C. C. Willoughby, director of Peabody Museum, the writer learns that this part of an antler is yet in that museum. He writes that it has been a handle for apparently a steel knife and that he sees nothing whatever about the specimen to indicate a prehistoric origin. It may, he thinks, have been washed out of some recent Indian grave. In a personal letter to Mr. S. N. Rhoads, Professor Putnam wrote that the fragment had been identified by Dr. J. A. Allen as belonging to Rangifer. In 1883 (Jour. Franklin Inst., vol. CXV, pp. 366, 374), H. C. Lewis stated on the authority of Dr. C. C. Abbott that remains of Rangifer had been discovered in the Trenton gravels.
PENNSYLVANIA.
1. Stroudsburg, Monroe County.—In Crystal Hill (Hartman’s) Cave, near Stroudsburg, there was found, many years ago, bones and teeth of what Leidy (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1880, p. 347) called Rangifer caribou. In 1889 (Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Pennsylvania for 1887, p. 5) the remains are spoken of as fragments of jaws and teeth.
2. Riegelsville, Bucks County.—In his earliest mention of remains found in Durham Cave, near Riegelsville, Leidy included the woodland caribou (Rangifer caribou). In his list published in 1889 (Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Pennsylvania for 1887, p. 18) this species is not included, but the writer does not know why it was not.
ILLINOIS.
1. Alton, Madison County.—In the collection of fossils made in the region about Alton by William McAdams, a list of which will be given on page 339, is a single upper right molar, the first or second, which belongs to this genus. The tooth has McAdams’s No. 11. To the base of the tooth a mass of very hard matrix adheres and a part of the grinding-surface is covered by the same material. The tooth is likewise somewhat shattered. The length of the tooth is 19 mm., the width across the anterior lobe 13.5 mm.
From the materials at hand it is not possible to determine to what species the tooth belonged. It is referred provisionally to Rangifer muscatinensis. This tooth differs from other Rangifer teeth observed in having the front of the protocone, at its base, less fully rounded out, and in that the mesostyle, on the inner face of the tooth, widens more extensively as it approaches the base than in any other species observed. Nevertheless, the width of the mesostyle varies in species and individuals.
WISCONSIN.
1. Menomonie, Dunn County.—From Professor S. Weidman, of the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, the writer received a part of an antler of a female or a young individual of some species of Rangifer. Professor Weidman sends the information that this was obtained in a sand formation just below the clays worked at Menomonie for brick. He regards the brick-clays as being of Sangamon interglacial age. He states, too, that a part of a leg-bone believed to belong to a mastodon had been found in the clays; also bones of a fish, which have been identified by Dr. Hussakof as the Mackinaw trout, Cristivomer namaycush (Jour. Geology, vol XXIV, pp. 685–689, figs. 1, 2).
Probably the caribou represented by this specimen lived in that region at the beginning or at the close of some one of the glacial stages, when the climate was yet severe. The supposed mastodon bone may have belonged to Elephas primigenius. It is described on page 111.
At a later time Dr. Weidman sent the writer a large part of the beam of an antler of a caribou which likewise had been found in the lacustrine clay at Menomonie. It was met with in the red clay, near the top of the lacustrine clay bed.
KENTUCKY.
1. Bigbone Lick, Boone County.—The presence of reindeer bones at this place appears first to have been mentioned by William Cooper (Monthly Amer. Jour. Geol., vol. I, p. 207). He wrote that “antlers, jaws, and other remains of Cervus canadensis, C. virginianus, C. alces, and perhaps C. tarandus are not very rare.” Shaler (Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. XIII, 1871, p. 167; Geol. Surv. Kentucky, n. s., vol. III, p. 197) reported that antlers of the caribou had been found by him here. A list of the species found at Bigbone Lick will be given on page 403.