KENTUCKY.
(Map [27].)
1. Bigbone Lick, Boone County.—Great numbers of individuals of Bison bison have been found at Bigbone Lick. Cooper (Monthly Amer. Jour. Geol., vol. I, pp. 207, 211) reported numerous bones of buffaloes and even an entire skeleton, but they appear to have been near the surface or even on it. Lyell (“Travels in North America,” Murray’s ed., vol. II, p. 65) stated that he had seen great quantities of remains of the bison in a superficial stratum in the river bank; but he was left in doubt whether or not the animals had been contemporaneous with the mastodon. Shaler (Geol. Surv. Kentucky, n. s., vol. III, p. 197) found abundant remains of the buffalo at this place; but the bones were not found at any great depth, except in the bog about the spring. He regarded it as proven that the musk-ox and the caribou did not come into contact with the recent buffalo, but were extinct before it came. Some of the bison materials collected by Shaler were described by Dr. J. A. Allen, in 1876 (Mem. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. IV; Mem. Geol. Surv. Kentucky, vol. I, pt. 2). It may be difficult to prove that any of the bison bones and teeth found here are of Pleistocene age; but there appears to be no good reason why this species might not have reached that region at the close of the Wisconsin ice-stage. A list of the species of mammals found here is given on page [403].
2. Bluelick Springs, Nicholas County.—In the mass of materials collected in the spring at Bluelick Springs by Mr. Thomas W. Hunter, were skulls and parts thereof, teeth, limb-bones, and vertebræ. The actual geological age of these remains can not be established; but they were of probably late Wisconsin age.