NEW YORK.
(Map [17].)
1. Throg’s Neck, New York County.—In 1866 (Smithson. Contrib. Knowl., vol. XV, art. 3, p. 16), Charles Whittlesey stated he had a tooth of a horse, taken from the compact marine drift at Throg’s Neck. It was obtained by J. A. Bailey from excavations at Fort Schuyler, 18 feet below the surface.
According to Folio No. 83 of the U. S. Geological Survey, Harlem Quadrangle, Throg’s Neck is occupied by till which usually thinly covers, or leaves exposed, the underlying Hudson schist; Salisbury gives an account of the drift on page 14 of the folio cited. At the depth indicated the tooth was probably lying in pre-Wisconsin deposits; and taking into consideration the geological age of other horse remains, one may reasonably conclude that the tooth at Throg’s Neck was of a horse that lived during the middle or early Pleistocene. That there may be materials of a pre-Wisconsin stage underlying the surface drift at Throg’s Neck is indicated by Woodworth’s discovery (Bull. 48, N. Y. State Mus., p. 626, plate I) of deposits older than the Wisconsin along Hempstead Bay, Long Island.
Note.—In 1858 (Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. VI, p. 303), Dr. Skilton, of Troy, wrote that a farmer had dug up, in what had been marshy ground, 17 teeth of a horse. These, Skilton stated, belonged to Equus major. The teeth were greatly decayed. The writer of the report said that the enamel of the first upper molar, meaning the anterior of the six grinding teeth, measured 1.9 inches (47.5 mm.); that of the corresponding lower teeth 2.33 inches (58 mm.). If these measurements were taken correctly, they indicate a horse much larger than any yet known, unless it be Equus giganteus of Texas. There is no evidence that Dr. Skilton had made any serious study of the dentition of horses and the teeth were probably those of a domestic horse, or even of some other animal.
In 1884 (Trans. Linn. Soc. N. Y., vol. II, p. 47), Dr. C. Hart Merriam, in his paper “The Vertebrates of the Adirondack Region,” stated he had examined several fossil molar teeth of Equus major exhumed at Keenes Station, near the Oswegatchie Ox Bow, in Jefferson County, New York. He compared them with the corresponding teeth of an immense dray horse and found them much larger.
Professor G. C. Manse, of St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York, sent me for examination 4 upper teeth of a horse which must be those examined by Dr. C. H. Merriam. They are labeled as having been collected at Gouverneur, a town not far from Keenes Station. After a careful study of these teeth and comparison with those of the domestic horse, the writer concludes that they belonged to the latter. Domestic horses are known to have larger teeth. Professor Manse has unfortunately been unable to trace the history of the teeth back to Dr. C. C. Benton, of Ogdensburg, who showed them to Dr. Merriam.