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

WISCONSIN.

(Map [5].)

1. Dover, Racine County.—In the Milwaukee Public Museum is a tusk, identified as that of a mastodon, exhumed from a peat-bog at Dover, in 1878. Both tusks and some fragments of a scapula, some ribs, and vertebræ were found, but apparently no teeth. Only one tusk was saved; 4 feet 8 inches long and moderately curved, the middle of the concave surface being about 6 inches below a line joining the base and the tip of the tusk.

Dover is situated near the southern border of Racine County, in the southwestern corner of township 3 north, range 20 east. It is, therefore, within the great composite moraine which runs along the western side of Lake Michigan. According to Alden’s map (Prof. Paper 106, U. S. Geol. Surv., plate III) the town is on a tract covered by ground moraine of the Lake Michigan glacier.

2. Waukesha, Waukesha County.—In the Milwaukee Public Museum is a slightly worn upper hindermost molar of a mastodon, No. 3867, labeled as having been found at Waukesha. There is no other history. The geological age is probably practically the same as that of the tooth found at Dover, Late Wisconsin.

3. Madison, Dane County.—The records for mastodons at Madison are not very satisfactory.

Professor Eliot Blackwelder informs the writer that there is in the collection at the State University of Wisconsin a large vertebra, supposed to be that of a mastodon, brought up out of Lake Monona, in 1906.

Professor C. A. Davis informed the author that in 1908 he visited the fill in one of the city parks made by pumping mud from Lake Monona and found fragments of ivory and parts of proboscidean bones. It is possible that these fragments belonged to an elephant.

4. Bluemounds, Dane County.—In 1862 J. D. Whitney, in his “Report on the Geological Survey of the Upper Mississippi Land Region,” page 132, mentions having found, at Bluemounds, the first 3 deciduous molars of the mastodon, exquisitely preserved and not at all discolored. Dr. Jeffries Wyman, in Whitney’s report, on pages 421, 422, referred to these milk molars. Whitney in 1866 (Geol. Surv. Illinois, vol. I, p. 162) stated that he had found in a crevice near Bluemounds bones and teeth of mastodon, peccary, buffalo, and wolf.

5. Lone Rock, Richland County.—Professor Eliot Blackwelder, of the Wisconsin State University, informs the writer that there is in their collection a pair of tusks, supposed to be of a mastodon. They were found somewhere about Lone Rock in 1901, which is on the northern bank of the Wisconsin River, in the southeastern corner of Richland County.

6. Sinsinawa, Grant County.—In his report on the geology of the lead region, already referred to, J. D. Whitney stated, on his page 133, that the greatest quantity of bones of the mastodon found in that region seems to have been near Sinsinawa mound, but he had no exact particulars of depth or position. Some were preserved at the locality for several years; others, to the amount of several bushels, were carried off or destroyed.

7. Wauzeka, Crawford County.—In the collection of the Public Museum of Milwaukee is an upper last molar, found at the place named. It is only slightly worn and nearly white in color. Nothing is known about the exact place or under what conditions it was found.

8. Richland Center, Richland County.—Professor George Wagner of the Wisconsin State University, has informed the writer that there is in that university an almost complete skeleton of a mastodon, found at the place named. No particulars are known to the present writer regarding the history of the specimen.

9. Menomonie, Dunn County.—Professor S. Weidman, of the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, informed the writer that in the brick clays used at Menominee had been found a part of a leg-bone of a mastodon. Dr. Weidman was kind enough to send the bone for examination. It proved to be the distal end of the right humerus, including the epiphysial part. The interior of the bone had been neatly excavated, as if by a tool of some kind, the marks of which remained, which proved to be the jaws of a wolf. He had evidently been after the marrow and had scraped out all of the part filled by cancellated bone. The explanation appears to be that the mastodon had in some way broken an arm and had died. The wolves then proceeded to devour him; they could not have broken the limb themselves.

The finding of the bone shows that these clays belong to the Pleistocene. In a sand formation underlying the clays a caribou antler and bones of the Mackinaw trout, Cristivomer namaycush, have been found. Professor Weidman regards the clays as being of pre-Iowan age.