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

INDIANA.

(Map [22].)

1. Evansville, Vanderburg County.—In a collection of bones and teeth made at the mouth of Pigeon Creek, a short distance below Evansville, and described by Leidy (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., 1854, pp. 199–200) were included remains of the Virginia deer. With these bones were parts of the skeleton of Megalonyx jeffersonii, a bison of probably an extinct species, a cervical vertebra of the horse known as Equus complicatus, a tooth of a tapir, and the type upper jaw of the extinct wolf Ænocyon dirus.

On page [32] is discussed the age of the bone-bed. It is concluded that it belonged possibly to the Aftonian stage, but more probably to the Sangamon. Although this species of deer yet exists, abundant remains of a species not yet distinguishable from it are found in early Pleistocene deposits in Florida and elsewhere. According to D. D. Owen (Smithson. Contrib. Knowl., vol. VII, art. V, p. 7), this deer was found associated with megalonyx bones a few miles below Henderson, Kentucky. Also, these two species, together with Equus complicatus and an extinct species of Bison and other extinct species of mammals, have been exhumed at Bigbone Lick, halfway between Louisville and Cincinnati, on the Kentucky side.

Under this number may be considered the deer Odocoileus dolichopsis, which Cope described in 1878 (Amer. Naturalist, vol. XII, p. 189). This was represented by a left ramus of the mandible, found, as reported by the State geologist, John Collett, in a late lacustrine deposit in Vanderburg County. In the same deposits was found an ulno-radius of a species of Bison. The deer jaw was further described and figured by Cope and Wortman in 1884 (Geol. Surv. Indiana, vol. XIV, p. 22, plate ii). Here, in quoting Cope’s description found in volume IV of Bulletins U. S. Geological Survey, page 379, the authors substituted Harrison County for Vanderburg County. In 1912 (Geol. Surv. Indiana, vol. XXXVI, p. 615), the present writer accepted Cope and Wortman’s statement as to the county; but it appears that the locality was really in Vanderburg County. Cope and Wortman’s plate was reproduced by the writer in 1912 (Geol. Surv. Indiana, vol. XXXVI, p. 615, plate VI, figs. 2, 2b). Figure [1] of the plate represents a part of an upper jaw which may or may not belong to the same species. It was supposed to have been found in the same deposits.

2. Harrisville, Randolph County.—In the collection at Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, the writer has examined some bones which apparently belonged to the Virginia deer, Odocoileus virginianus. The distal end of the radius, a right calcaneum, and a sacrum have been identified. These were found in a swamp known as “The Dismal,” situated about 6 miles nearly east of Winchester. This would not be far from the village of Harrisville. In this swamp were collected the fine specimen of the giant beaver, preserved at Earlham College, and the bones of an elk. The swamp is located near the Union City moraine, and the animals buried there must have lived at some time after the retirement of the Wisconsin ice-sheet; probably the time was long enough after that retirement for the climate to become relatively mild.

3. Roann, Wabash County.—In 1892 (Geol. Surv. Indiana, vol. XVII, p. 241), Elrod and Benedict reported that in 1882 a Mr. Rantz, while digging a ditch on the farm of William Runkle, 3 miles north of Roann, unearthed, at a depth of 9 feet, the antlers and part of the skeleton of the deer Odocoileus virginianus. The locality is evidently north of Eel River and near the southern border of the great moraine which runs parallel with this stream and north of it. Undoubtedly this deer lived after the Wisconsin ice had withdrawn from the vicinity. In similar situations in that region have been found several mastodons. It is probable, therefore, that the deer belonged to the late Pleistocene.

From Mr. B. E. Galtry, of Roann, the writer learns that Mr. Runkle informed him that none of the bones found has been preserved. There were many found, shin-bones, ribs, and antlers, from 3 to 4 feet below the surface. Large numbers of poles were found, and the ditch diggers got the notion that these poles had formed a bridge.