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 [23], [38].)

1. Niantic, Macon County.—in 1873 (Geol. Surv. Illinois, vol. V, p. 308), A. H. Worthen reported the discovery of remains of mastodon, elk, buffalo, and deer in a bog near Niantic. The exact locality and the conditions are described on page [102]. In that account it is concluded that the mastodon remains went to the museum of C. F. Günther, of Chicago, and from there to the collection of the Chicago Academy of Sciences. What became of the bones of the elk, the buffalo, and the deer is not known. As no record appears to have been kept of the depths at which each of the species was found, we do not know whether or not the others were as old as the mastodon. However, it is certain that these old ponds and marshes left on the surface of the Wisconsin drift filled up very slowly.

2. Near Whitewillow, Kendall County, 5 miles west by north of Minooka.—Dr. E. S. Riggs, of the Field Museum of Natural History, informed the writer that he had found here bones of the elk. These were also reported by him in Netta C. Anderson’s list (Augustana Coll. Publ., No. 5, page 11). Mr. George Langford, of Joliet, has likewise found elk antlers here and remains of Cervalces and Alces americanus.

For the location of this place and its geological situation page 337 may be consulted. All the species found are without doubt of Late Wisconsin age. Riggs’s statement referred to appears to indicate that the elk, buffalo, and deer bones found are of more recent age than those of the mastodons, but Mr. Langford writes that the antlers were mixed up with the mastodon bones.

3. Palos Park, Cook County.—This place is on the Wabash Railway, about 20 miles southwest of Chicago. Dr. E. S. Riggs wrote the author that in October 1915, the Field Museum of Natural History had received a fine head and antlers of the elk from the Sag Drainage Canal near Palos Park. It was found in peat at a depth of 13 feet. One can hardly doubt that the animal lived there during the latter part of the Wisconsin stage.

4. Batavia, Kane County.—Dr. E. S. Riggs, writing April 3, 1916, informed the author that he had picked up the jaw of an elk along a ditch, somewhere about Batavia, in which mastodon bones had been found. At what depth the bones had been buried could not be determined. In this case all that can be said is that the animal lived there after the Wisconsin ice had retired from that place.

5. Union Grove, Whiteside County.—In the U. S. National Museum, No. 7335, is a right astragalus of an elk found near Union Grove, 3 feet below the surface of a bed of peat, in an old channel of the Mississippi River. This astragalus was presented by Mr. Leo B. Lincoln, of Chicago, through the peat expert of the U. S. Geological Survey, Professor Charles A. Davis.

The locality is said to be in the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of section 7, Union Grove Township, apparently township 21 north, range 4 west. This section appears to be about 5 miles away from the present bed of the river. Although the area is outside of the Wisconsin drift-sheet, it is not probable that the elk antedates the Wisconsin stage. Its age is more probably Late Wisconsin.

6. Lead Region of Illinois.—In 1876, J. A. Allen (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XI, p. 48) stated he found in a collection made in this region by J. D. Whitney an imperfect radius that seemed not to differ at all from that of a young male Cervus canadensis. This collection is that reported on by Jeffries Wyman in 1862 (Geol. Surv. Wisconsin, vol. I, pp. 421–423). It is impossible to say whether the specimen was found in Wisconsin, Iowa, or Illinois.

As elsewhere stated, the writer formerly regarded the vertebrate fossils found in that region as belonging mostly to the Late Wisconsin; but it now appears possible they lived during a pre-Wisconsin time.

7. Beecher, Will County.—Mr. George Langford, of Joliet, Illinois, an intelligent collector of the fossils of that region, informed the author that he obtained an antler of the Cervus canadensis at a place along Trim Creek, about 3 miles north of east of Beecher. The fragment included the base and two tines. The exact locality and the geological conditions are discussed on page [107]. Mr. Langford reported that the antlers were above the mastodon bones. At the same place was found a fragment of an antler of Cervalces. All these species belonged probably to very late Pleistocene time.