PENNSYLVANIA.
(Map [25].)
1. Pittston, Luzerne County.—In 1872 (Contrib. Ext. Fauna West. Terrs., p. 255, plate XXVIII, fig. 8), Leidy briefly described and figured a molar tooth which he referred to Bison latifrons. It had been found along the bank of Susquehanna River at Pittston, associated with the mastodon and a horse. Dr. J. A. Allen (Amer. Bisons, 1876, p. 12) expressed the opinion that the tooth belonged to some species of Ovibos. The present writer agrees that the tooth is not that of Bison. It seems to agree more nearly with teeth of Symbos cavifrons; but it differs from the teeth of that species in some respects. The writer has examined this tooth at the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia. It is worn almost to the roots and is 34 mm. long and 32 mm. thick at the base of the hinder lobe. It agrees in form more closely with the first molar of both Ovibos and Symbos; but it is much larger than the same tooth in Ovibos moschatus and somewhat larger than that of Symbos cavifrons. The inner face of the anterior lobe is much more rounded than in Symbos, and the inner face of the hinder lobe forms an angle with the hinder face, instead of rounding into it, as it does in Symbos cavifrons. The teeth appear to have been packed together more closely, on the lingual side, than in Bison, Symbos, and Ovibos. The tooth is probably worthy of being given a new name.
Mr. S. W. Rhoads has examined this tooth and concluded that it belonged to Bison bison. To this view it seems sufficient to say that in Bison teeth the outer face of each of the lobes is very convex and column-like, while the parastyle and especially the mesostyle are relatively small. In the Pittston tooth the mesostyle stands out beyond the outer face of the hinder lobe, and the latter is nearly flat; this is also the condition in Symbos. The writer will say further that the accessory column is not always present in teeth of Symbos.
2. Riegelsville, Bucks County.—Mr. Rhoads, as cited above, on pages [246] to [248], described a part of a horn-core of a bovine animal to which he applied the name Bison appalachicolus. Later (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., 1897, p. 492) he concluded that the horn-core had belonged to an animal of the genus Ovibos; and accordingly it bears the name O. appalachicolus. Leidy had in 1889 called attention to a collection of bones made in Durham Cave, near Riegelsville (Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv., Pennsylvania, for 1887, pp. 18–19). He recorded 20 species, all of which lived there or at most, not far away, when the country was discovered. These may have all entered the cave at a later period, but the musk-ox may have antedated the others. A list of these fossils is presented on page [311].