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°

1. Milwaukee.—In the Public Museum of Milwaukee are considerable parts of a mammoth skeleton (No. 5351) found within the limits of the city. These were secured in May 1898, in excavating for a sewer along Cold Spring avenue and between Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth streets. On learning of the discovery, Mr. George B. Turner, then taxidermist of the Milwaukee Public Museum, afterwards chief taxidermist in the U. S. National Museum, took charge of the excavations for the skeleton. He furnished the writer with an account of his work, giving a list of the bones, a plan of the area excavated, and a section of the deposits passed through. A description of the remains is given below:

As indicated in Turner’s sketch, the surface of the gravel and stones sloped downward toward the north.

It will be seen that the bones were buried about 9 or 10 feet below the natural surface of the ground. The head of the elephant was directed toward the east, the hinder end toward the west. The parts found were within a distance of 10 feet from east to west. Later the excavations on each side of the sewer were extended eastward, as shown on the plan, in an effort to find the skull, but without success, and iron rods 10 feet long, in two sections, were driven their full length horizontally everywhere around the excavation in the hope of recovering the skull.

For some time after the finding of these bones the theory prevailed that they had belonged to an elephant of one of the circuses which had made use of the ground near there. The fact that the lower jaw was found, but not the upper jaw and the brain-case, and only a part of the vertebræ and a part of the foot-bones, is sufficient to dispose of this theory. Also, some of the bones lack the epiphyses. Besides this, the elephant was neither the African nor the Asiatic species. It is evident that the animal after dying had lain on the surface for some time, so that the bones were somewhat scattered, perhaps by wolves or waves, and some were injured by exposure to the weather.

The following is a list of the bones found: Lower jaw, 5 cervicals, 9 presacrals, 31 ribs, both scapulæ, both humeri, both ulnæ, both radii, 9 wristbones, 14 metacarpals and phalanges, 1 femur and a fragment of the other, 2 tibiæ, 2 fibulæ, 17 metatarsals and phalanges.

It is evident that this elephant lived and died after the Lake Michigan ice-lobe had withdrawn from that vicinity. It may, however, not have been long after that withdrawal; for it is probable that the muddy waters from the foot of that glacial lobe furnished the blue clay which enveloped the bones. Later peat and muck and mixtures of these with clay accumulated over the blue clay. The place is within the area of what Alden has mapped as ground moraine of Lake Michigan glacier. The occurrence of peat and shells seems to show that there was a pond in which the elephant had been buried and afterwards covered with clay and peat.

Under this number must be included the fine palate and teeth found in excavating for a sewer on the South Side, at Milwaukee. The record as to exact location, depth, and kind of materials overlying it is missing. A description of it, with illustrations, was published by the present writer in 1912 (Iowa Geol. Surv., vol. XXIII, p. 409, plate LIX).

This individual probably had a history not greatly different from that of the Cold Spring Avenue elephant.

MARYLAND.

1. Oxford Neck, Talbot County.—In 1869, Cope (Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc., vol. XI, p. 178) stated he had seen in the collection of the Baltimore Academy of Natural Sciences two molars, the tusk, maxillary and premaxillary bones, and parts of frontals, with fragments of other bones, which he referred to Elephas americanus Leidy. These, it is supposed, were remains of E. primigenius. Lucas (Maryland Geol. Surv., Pliocene and Pleistocene, 1906, p. 164) refers to these remains and identifies them as certainly those of E. primigenius. He found a smaller tooth of this species which had come from Oxford Neck. Leidy (Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. VII, 1869, p. 255) speaks of the teeth, tusks, and the other parts mentioned above.

1. Saltville, Smyth County.—In 1914, Mr. H. D. Mount, of the Mathieson Alkali Works, of Saltville, sent to the U. S. National Museum some remains of an elephant, identified as Elephas primigenius. These were found about 1896 in making an excavation for the water reservoir. The most important parts sent are teeth, whole or fragmentary, and appear to represent three or four individuals. Among the teeth is a complete but considerably worn upper left hindermost molar and an unworn upper second true molar. The former indicates the presence of 23 ridge-plates; the latter 16 of them. Remarks on this discovery and a list of all the species secured will be found on page 352.

NORTH CAROLINA.

1. Inland Waterway Canal, Carteret County.—In the collection of the State Museum, at Raleigh, the writer has seen an upper hindermost molar (A. N. 1326) which certainly belongs to this species and which is said to have been dredged up in Core Creek. The creek forms a part of the Inland Waterway which joins Neuse River with the harbor at Beaufort. The molar was presented to the State collection by Mr. H. T. Paterson, U. S. assistant engineer, now of Newbern, North Carolina. From the director of the museum, Professor H. H. Brimley, the writer has received photographs of this fine tooth. In the same canal was found a jaw of a mastodon which is mentioned on page 117. From Mr. Paterson the writer has received the important information that the tooth was found in Core Creek about 8.5 miles from Beaufort, in 1909, while dredging a sedimentary deposit varying from 6 to 8 feet in depth, containing numerous cypress stumps and roots and underlain by a deposit of sand mixed with shells and other fossils. Into this the dredge went from 6 to 8 feet.

The tooth is worn to the base in front and a very few plates are probably missing. Nevertheless, there are still 22 or 23 remaining. The base of the tooth is nearly straight and the ridge-plates are but little curved. The length of the base is 232 mm. Measured along the side of the tooth are 11 ridge-plates in a 100–mm. line. The enamel is unusually thin, being about 1.3 mm. in thickness, and but little undulating across the grinding-surface.

It is believed that the deposit containing this elephant tooth and the cypress stumps belongs to the first interglacial, while the underlying sands containing marine fossils belong to the Nebraskan glacial stage.

FLORIDA.

1. Palma Sola, Manatee County.—Mr. Charles T. Earle, an enthusiastic collector living at this place, sent to the U. S. National Museum in 1921 various lots of vertebrate fossils which had been washed up on the beach at Palma Sola. Among the fossils belonging to the Pleistocene is a tooth, a right lower second milk molar, which must apparently be referred to Elephas primigenius. It is much worn, the plates present rising above the base only about 10 mm. The anterior root and the posterior had been considerably absorbed. Only 4 ridge-plates remain; evidently at least 1 had wholly disappeared from the front, and 2, possibly 3, from the rear. The original length of the tooth can not be determined. The width is 30 mm. The 4 enamel plates present, together with the portion of cement belonging to each, occupy a length of 30 mm. The enamel is thin.

It would be more surprising to find this species in Florida had it not already been discovered in North Carolina and at two places in Texas, Temple and near San Antonio. One can not state with certainty the stage of the Pleistocene during which this individual lived, but the writer believes that it was during an early stage, perhaps the first interglacial.

TENNESSEE.

1. Whitesburg, Hamblen County.—In a collection of fossil vertebrates sent many years ago to the U. S. National Museum and described by the writer in 1920 (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. LVIII, p. 85) is a fragment consisting of two plates from the rear of a penultimate milk molar, probably of the lower jaw. This is referred to Elephas primigenius. Of page 395 will be found a list of the accompanying species.

KENTUCKY.

1. Bigbone Lick, Boone County.—In the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia is a fine upper left hindermost molar, sent from the place named. There are present 23 or 24 plates. It is worn back to the apex of the eighteenth plate. The length along the base in a straight line is 253 mm.; there are therefore about 9 plates in a 100–mm. line. Some other teeth from the same place, now in the collection, were regarded as belonging to the same species.

In William Cooper’s account of collections made at Bigbone Lick (Monthly Amer. Jour. Geol., vol. I, pp. 168–171) he showed that great numbers of teeth as well as bones of elephants had been collected at various times at this locality. He refers all to Elephas primigenius, but certainly many of them must have belonged to the species now known as E. columbi. Cooper mentions the discovery of a fine and nearly entire skull of an elephant, 4 feet long, having all of the teeth and one tusk in it. In the nearly 100 years that have elapsed this specimen has probably suffered destruction.