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 [26].)

1. Evansville, Vanderburg County.—Many years ago Dr. Leidy (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1854, pp. 199–200) described a collection of mammalian remains made on the banks of Ohio River at the mouth of Pigeon Creek, a short distance below Evansville. Among these materials was a fragment of a cervical vertebra of a species of Bison, which Leidy identified with doubt as Bison americanus, the existing bison, now known as Bison bison. It would be impossible to determine to which of our several species of the genus Bison this bone belonged; but it probably did not belong to B. bison. This species is not known from times preceding the Wisconsin drift and the bone-bed at Pigeon Creek is undoubtedly older. On page [32] is a discussion of the probable age of the bone-bed. It may be as old as the Aftonian stage, but more probably it belonged to the Sangamon.

The other species found at the locality named are Megalonyx jeffersonii, the Virginia deer, the extinct horse known as Equus complicatus, Tapirus haysii, and the extinct wolf Ænocyon dirus. At Bigbone Lick, midway between Louisville and Cincinnati, on the Kentucky side, have been found two extinct species of Bison, B. antiquus and B. latifrons. At the same place has been found Equus complicatus. The beds there overlie the Illinoian drift and belong, in part at least, to the Sangamon.

Under this number may be included mention of a bone of a species of Bison which Cope reported in 1878 (Amer. Naturalist, vol. XII, p. 189) from Vanderburg County. Cope stated that John Collett, then State geologist of Indiana, had discovered in a late Pleistocene deposit a number of fossils. One of these was the ulno-radius of a Bos (now to be referred to Bison); another was a part of the mandible of the deer Odocoileus dolichopsis. In 1884 (Geol. Surv. Indiana, vol XIV, p. 22), Cope and Workman, inaccurately quoting Cope’s original description of the deer Odocoileus dolichopsis, state that this deer and the bison bones were found in Harrison County.

By consulting the Patoka Folio, No. 105, of the U. S. Geological Survey, it will be seen that the northern part of Vanderburg County, four townships, Nos. 4 and 5 south, ranges 10 and 11 west, are included. The two northern townships are largely occupied by lacustrine deposits which the geologists Fuller and Clapp regarded as having been laid down in lakes produced by the damming of the drainage by the Illinoian ice-sheet. Farther south, along the streams emptying into Pigeon Creek, are wide areas which are covered by “fine silts, mainly of pre-Wisconsin age, but including some of more recent age.” Whether or not the bison bone and the jaw of Odocoileus dolichopsis were found in any of these deposits we are unfortunately left in the dark. It is most probable that the bison and the deer lived there after the Illinoian stage and before the Wisconsin.

2. Vincennes, Knox County.—In the geological collection of Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, is preserved the greater part of the skull of a bison which belonged to the species known as Bison antiquus. This skull was first described and figured by Mr. W. G. Middleton and Professor Joseph Moore (Proc. Ind. Acad. Sci. for 1899, pp. 178–181, with a plate); afterwards by the writer (Geol. Surv. Indiana, vol. XXXVI, p. 651, figs. 50, 51).

This fine skull is said to have been found in 1896 by a Mr. Brower, a few miles from Vincennes, in a ditch, at a depth of 6 feet. Beyond this the writer has not been able to learn. It would be of value to know exactly where this place was, for then some conclusion might be reached as to the geological age of the animal. The greater part of the county is occupied by drift of Illinoian age, which appears in some places to have on it some loess, and doubtless its surface has been much modified since the materials were laid down. Even in this area there may be some deposits of later times, interglacial and glacial.

According to Leverett’s glacial map of the region, there are along Wabash River sand and gravel terraces of Wisconsin age; while along White River there are said to be alluvial terraces older than Wisconsin.

At present one can arrive at a conclusion only from general knowledge. The writer knows of no extinct bison (except one rather peculiar species) which lived after the Wisconsin glacial stage. It appears most probable that the skull at Earlham College came from some interglacial deposits laid down about the middle of the Pleistocene, most likely during the Sangamon stage.

The writer has been informed that another skull of a buffalo was for years on exhibition in a business house conducted by Mr. T. L. Cheney, but it seems to have disappeared. Mr. J. Gimble, of Vincennes, informs the writer that it was found in the bed of Wabash River, near St. Francisville, Illinois, about 10 miles below Vincennes.