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

ILLINOIS.

(Maps [16], [38].)

Within the Area of the Illinoian Drift.

1. Equality, Gallatin County.—In 1875, E. T. Cox (Geol. Surv. Illinois, vol. VI, pp. 213–214), in his report on Gallatin County, Illinois, stated he had picked up numerous plates of elephant teeth at what was called “Half-moon,” located near Equality, in section 19, township 9, range 8 east. It is an excavation made many years ago to obtain salt-brine, near the Saline River, as the region thereabout furnishes salt springs. It is implied in Cox’s account that other remains of elephants had been found there, but usually in a bad condition. It is impossible to determine to which species of elephant the fragments belonged.

According to Leverett’s glacial map of the region (Monogr. XXXVIII, U. S. Geol. Surv., plate VI), the locality is occupied by alluvial terraces older than the Wisconsin drift. Not far away is the border of the Illinoian drift. Most probably the elephants there represented lived after the Illinoian stage, but they may have lived at any time thereafter up to the Late Wisconsin.

2. Chester, Randolph County.—Professor A. W. Worthen, former State geologist of Illinois, made (Geol. Surv. Illinois, vol. VIII, p. 8) the statement that Hon. William McAdams had found at Chester and Alton remains of mammoth, Megalonyx, Bos (=Bison), Castoroides ohioensis, and other extinct animals. He did not, however, say what species had been found at each place.

A newspaper statement was published in 1911 to the effect that William Rade, of Belleville, had a large tooth, found in the lowlands along Mississippi River south of Chester. It was described as a molar a foot in length, 6 inches in diameter (in height probably), weighing over 5 pounds, and having several parallel ridges across the face. It was doubtless the tooth of a species of elephant. A letter addressed to William Rade brought no response. It is probable that the tooth had been washed down from higher ground at some time. Its geological age is indeterminable.

3. Calhoun County.—William McAdams reported in 1883 (Trans. St. Louis Acad. Sci., vol. IV, p. LXXIX) that he had recovered from the clay in a ravine in Calhoun County, Illinois, “the jaw of an elephant beside which Jumbo would seem small.” One of the teeth from this fossil jaw, and which McAdams presented before the Academy for inspection, weighed nearly 18 pounds. It is not known what became of this jaw and the teeth; nor can we determine the geological age of the animal. Such discoveries lose most of their value through lack of exact statements regarding the origin of the objects.

15. Christian County.—In 1866 (Geol. Surv. Illinois, vol. I, p. 39), Worthen stated that a tooth of a mammoth had been found by David Miller in a sand drift near the South Fork of Sangamon River, in Christian County. It was presented to the State cabinet. The tooth is said to have been of a chalky whiteness. The drift which covers this county belongs to the Illinoian. It is not probable that the animal in question lived before the Illinoian stage.

4. Sangamon County.—In 1873, Worthen (Geol. Surv. Illinois, vol. V, p. 308) stated that the tooth of a mammoth had been found some years before in the bluffs of the Sangamon River and near the surface. He concluded that it had not come from beds older than the loess. While the probability is that the tooth was found in the Sangamon loess, there can be no certainty about it. The animal might have lived there while the Wisconsin ice was nearby.

5. Fulton County.—In Netta C. Anderson’s list of 1905 (Augustana Library Pubs. No. 5, p. 10), Professor Albert Hurd, of Knox College, reported that there was in the museum of that college a poorly preserved tooth of some species of elephant, found in Fulton County. All that can be said about the geological age of this find is that the county is covered by Illinoian drift and that the tooth is probably not older. Nevertheless, it might have been found in some excavation or along some ravine which had reached the Yarmouth.

6. Galesburg, Knox County.—In Netta C. Anderson’s list referred to, page 14, Professor Albert Hurd reported there was in the cabinet of Knox College a much decayed elephant tooth, found near Galesburg in the making of a ditch. The presumption is that the ditch had not passed through the Illinoian drift and that the animal had lived after the Illinoian stage; it may be during the Sangamon stage.

14. Pekin, Tazewell County.—In 1909 (Bull. 506, U. S. Geol. Surv., p. 61), Dr. J. A. Udden reported remains of a proboscidean found in Adam Saal’s gravel-pit, between Illinois River and Dead Lake, a mile south of Pekin, at a depth of 18 feet. There were two tusks, two teeth, a part of a jaw, and a few other bones. One tooth is reported to have weighed 18 pounds, the other 8 pounds. These were doubtless weighed while wet. Only the teeth of an elephant would weigh so much. It is impossible to determine the species. Udden stated that the gravel probably belongs to the latest Wisconsin terrace. The locality is on the border of the Shelbyville moraine.

9. Peoria, Peoria County.—In 1873 (Geol. Surv. Illinois, vol. V, p. 237), A. H. Worthen reported two molar teeth, with a portion of the jaw, found in a gravel-bed in the bluff in the city of Peoria. A part of one of these teeth was then in the State Cabinet at Springfield. According to Worthen, these remains were found at a depth between 12 and 48 feet. According to Udden’s map (Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., 506, plate I) the locality would probably be on the early Wisconsin terrace. The animal must have lived during the formation of this terrace. It would seem that this must have been after the Wisconsin ice had begun to retire and while the region was yet much depressed. Baker (Univ. Ill. Bull. XVII, p. 299) stated that this animal was a mastodon.

7. Rock Island, Rock Island County.—In Netta C. Anderson’s list of mastodons and elephants it is stated that in laying the overflow pipe from the basins of the Rock Island waterworks on the bluff south of the city, a cut was made in the loess to a depth of about 22 feet near the edge of the bluff. In the lower part of this cut were found a part of a tooth of an elephant and a piece of a leg-bone. These were given to the museum of Augustana College. The loess at this point is said to be about 35 feet thick and the lower part is somewhat peaty in cuts in the streets further west. Probably this loess belongs to the Iowan stage and that beneath it was an old soil deposited in peat-swamps. The fossil seems to belong to the Iowan glacial stage, possibly to the Peorian interglacial.

Elephants Found Within the Area of the Wisconsin Drift.

8. Atwood, Piatt County.—In Netta C. Anderson’s list, page 17, it is stated that in the museum of Northwestern University there is a tooth of a mammoth found near Atwood in 1879. It was dug up from about 6 feet from the surface. Atwood is in the extreme southeastern corner of Piatt County; the region round about is occupied by what Leverett (Monogr. XXXVIII, plate VI) calls the Shelbyville till sheet, belonging to the early Wisconsin stage. The animal may have lived at any time since that till was deposited up to Late Wisconsin. The tooth was probably buried in some old peat-swamp and unearthed during tilling operations.

13. Wheaton, Du Page County.—In Netta C. Anderson’s list, page 10, it was reported on the authority of Charles A. Blanchard, president of Wheaton College, that about 1890 the remains of a mammoth were found in ditches on the Jewell farm, near Wheaton. The remains consisted of about a dozen ribs, as many vertebræ, a femur, and other parts of legs. It appears to the writer that the remains may have belonged to a mastodon.

Wheaton is situated on that part of the Valparaiso moraine which runs parallel with the western shore of Lake Michigan. Whatever the animal was it must be regarded as belonging to the Late Wisconsin stage.

13. Oak Park, Cook County.—Under this number 13 must be recorded a mammoth tooth found in a gravel-pit at Oak Park, at a depth of several feet. Only parts of it were secured and the species is unknown. The pit was in the Glenville beach, laid down during the waning of the Wisconsin glacial sheet (Baker, F. C., Univ. Ill. Bull. XVII, p. 70).

10. Evanston, Cook County.—In Netta C. Anderson’s list, page 9, Professor U. S. Grant, of Northwestern University, reported that the museum contains the tooth of a mammoth, taken from a gravel-pit near Evanston. The animal must have lived after the Wisconsin glacier had withdrawn into the basin of Lake Michigan.

11. Rochelle, Ogle County.—In Netta C. Anderson’s list, pages 15, 16, Professor Frank Leverett reported that in July 1886 he had seen a collection of mammoth fossils at the house of F. G. Rossman, a farmer living near Rochelle, which he had obtained in a bog in the northwestern part of section 33, Lynnville Township. The materials consisted of a tusk, two teeth, a piece of the jawbone, a few ribs, and some fragments of bones. The fragment of tusk was about 5 feet long, 20 inches in circumference at one end, about 18 inches at the other. The tooth was from 12 to 13 inches long and 4 inches wide.

Rochelle is on the border between the Wisconsin drift-sheet and the earlier one lying west of it. On Leverett’s map this is put down as being Iowan; but no Iowan is now recognized in Illinois. Mr. F. N. Rice, county surveyor, reported that Lynnville Township is number 41 north, range 2 west.

In the Unglaciated Region in the Northwest Corner of the State.

12. Galena, Jo Daviess County.—The geologist J. D. Whitney reported in 1866 (Geol. Surv. Illinois, vol. I, p. 162) that a few teeth of the elephant had been found near Galena, on the surface. These are said to be preserved in a collection in Galena. Whitney stated that these were all that he had met with in the lead region. In his Geology of the Lead Region (Wisconsin Geol. Surv., vol. I, pp. 129–133) the same author said that, so far as he knew, elephant remains never were found in the lead crevices. The teeth mentioned above had been found within the limits of the city of Galena.

Galena is situated in the driftless region and no conclusion is reached about the geological age of those teeth.