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°

by Oliver Perry Hay

FLORIDA.

(Maps [14], [15].)

1. Dunnellon, Marion County.—In the collection of the Florida Geological Survey (Nos. 2233, 2234) are two fragments of teeth of an elephant dredged from Withlacoochee River at Dunnellon, presented by Mr. F. J. Titcomb. The teeth are regarded by the writer as being lower last molars, although the plates run nearly directly across the grinding-surfaces. They may belong to one individual. No. 2233 presents six plates; five of these occupy a line 100 mm. in length. They are much bent as they ascend, so that their hinder faces are very concave. The enamel is moderately thick.

The tooth (No. 2234) has been figured by Dr. Sellards of the natural size (8th Ann. Rep. Florida Geol. Surv., p. 85, fig. 12). As shown by that figure, the ridge-plates of the rear portion have a thickness of 25 mm. or even more. Taken all together there are hardly 5 in 100 mm. If that tooth had belonged to Elephas columbi and had had 24 plates, the length would have been about 25 inches, which is hardly to be supposed.

2. Vero, St. Lucie County.—In the eighth Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Florida, Dr. E. H. Sellards described and figured (p. 150, plate XXV, fig. 1) a lower jaw of an elephant which had been found near Vero. He referred it to Elephas columbi, but noted the coarseness of the plates and its resemblance to E. imperator. The specimen was found 3 miles west of Vero, along the bank of the drainage canal. It was embedded in a matrix of brown sand, a stratum of which rests on the marine shell-marl which underlies that region. It is evident that a number of plates are missing from the front and that the tooth is the hindermost one. If the jaw had belonged to E. columbi with 24 plates, the length of the teeth would have been about 440 mm. In case the tooth is that of E. imperator, there were probably about six more plates in front originally and the tooth had a length of about 330 mm. The width appears to be about 90 mm. In the collection at Amherst College is a fragment of a lower right molar, probably the hindermost, of this species. Six plates are represented. It is well worn down, with a very concave grinding-surface. The plates are close to 25 mm. thick. The exact place where the tooth was found is not mentioned on the label, but it was somewhere about Vero.

3. Labelle, Lee County.—In the report just cited (p. 112, fig. 46), Sellards described briefly and illustrated a tooth he secured in Caloosahatchee River in 1914. Notes taken by the writer are to the effect that it was found on the north bank of the river, at the first bend above Labelle, probably in Lee County and in township 43 south, range 29 east.

The length of this tooth, as preserved, is 310 mm. from the base in front to the rear of the talon. There are 12 ridge-plates present, but evidently some are gone from the front. There are 5 of these plates in a 100–mm. line, taken at the middle of their height. Sellards’s statement that his figure is one-fifth the natural size is evidently an error for one-third.

If this tooth belonged to E. columbi and had the usual number of plates, 24, the length would have been near 600 mm., a size not probable. If it belonged to E. imperator, as the writer thinks it did, the original length was somewhere near 450 mm., a more reasonable, but at the same time, an unusual dimension.

4. Everglades.—In the American Museum of Natural History, New York (No. 8068), is a part of a tooth once supposed to belong to the Indian elephant and said to have been mentioned somewhere by the geologist J. D. Dana as having been found in the Everglades. It appears to be well fossilized. It is apparently the second true molar of the right side. There are 12 plates, of which 5 occupy a line 100 mm. long. Some plates are evidently missing from the front. The writer believes that this tooth belongs to Elephas imperator.

5. Arcadia, De Soto County.—In the U. S. National Museum (No. 189) is a part of the left ramus of the lower jaw of an elephant recorded as having been found on Peace Creek. This jaw was collected by J. Fras Le Baron, and in a report made to Professor S. F. Baird in 1881, he indicated that this fossil, with many others which he had sent to the Smithsonian Institution, had been found somewhere along Peace Creek between the mouth of Little Charlie Apopka Creek and tide-water, but the place is no more exactly designated; in any case not many miles away from Arcadia. It, with other Pleistocene fossils, was found in gravel overlying a soft yellow limestone about 4.5 feet thick.

The jaw has been described and figured by Leidy (Trans. Wagner Inst., vol. II, p. 23, plate VIII, fig. 2) as Elephas columbi. He stated that eight of the ridges occupy a space of 6.4 inches. His estimate was, however, made near the grinding-surface of the tooth, where the plates converge. The writer has removed the bone and some of the cement from the inner face of the tooth, so as better to expose the edges of the plates. It is found that four of the enamel plates, with the corresponding cement plates, occupy 100 mm. The plates are too coarse for the tooth to be that of Elephas columbi. The length of the tooth, in a straight line along the base, is 260 mm. Had the tooth originally had 22 plates, a moderate number for E. columbi, the total length would have been 500 mm. or more. Meanwhile, the width is only 85 mm. There are now 12 plates left, and there were at first probably 18. The original length was probably about 400 mm. or less. Leidy thought that the 12 plates present represented the complete number entering into the constitution of the tooth, but the exposure of the base of the tooth in front shows that a number of plates had been worn out and lost.

The species of vertebrates found along Peace River in the vicinity of Arcadia and their geological age are discussed on pages [380]–[381].

6. Palmetto, Manatee County.—From Mr. J. C. Hennessy, of Palmetto, the U. S. National Museum has received a part of a lower left hindermost molar of Elephas imperator, found by him on January 10, 1917, on the north shore of Manatee River, within the corporate limits of Palmetto. The specimen presents seven ridge-plates and part of an eighth. Portions of the tooth are missing from both ends. The distance across five plates is 106 mm. The width across the worn face is 100 mm., the height of the hindermost plate present 150 mm. The enamel is strongly plicated. The tooth certainly belongs to Elephas imperator. The whole length of the tooth in its complete state was about 360 mm. Had it belonged to E. columbi, with 24 plates, the length would have been about 480 mm. (19 inches).