In some of the mastodons found, remains of food have been discovered between the ribs: thus it has been determined that the huge creature existed when the country appeared much as it does to-day. The Mastodon giganteus fed upon the spruce and fir trees. The mastodons wandered over almost every country known, and their remains are very common in South America. Humboldt found them as far north as Santa Fe de Bogota, and they have been discovered as far south as Buenos Ayres. Their range in South America has been given from five degrees north to about thirty-seven degrees south; and they were probably not restricted to this area.
Like the elephants of the present day, they wandered to great elevations, even up to the borders of perpetual snow; and a tooth described by Cuvier was obtained by Humboldt, in a volcano, at an elevation of seventy-two hundred feet above the level of the sea. A fine collection of these South-American mastodons is exhibited in the museum at Santiago. They were found by a party of men in an attempt to drain Lake Tagua in the province of Colchagua, about one hundred miles south of Santiago, sixty from the Pacific, and fourteen hundred feet above the sea. A ditch was cut, to drain off the water; and, after it had been drawn off, the remains of the great animal were seen lying upon the bottom.
PLATE V.
COHOES MASTODON.
With these mastodons, there existed in North America an elephant, E. Columbi, which probably associated in herds with the mastodon, but were not as large. The mastodons were extremely ponderous, and exceeded the largest elephant of to-day in size, and, though resembling them in general appearance, differed in several marked features. The tusks often grew in a peculiar manner: two large, nearly straight ones appeared in the upper jaw, while one or two protruded from the lower. As a rule, these lower incisors were small; but in some instances they attained considerable size. Imagine an elephant eleven or more feet in height, with three or four enormous sharp ivory tusks, its trunk raised aloft, rushing at an enemy! surely, such an animal was the true king of beasts, even in these early days. The tusks of the mastodons assumed many strange shapes, and a herd of these great creatures must have presented a curious appearance. As in other proboscidians, the teeth consisted of incisors and molars. In the Mastodon turiensis of the pliocene time, found at Sismonda, the tusks of the upper jaw were nearly straight, though bending their points toward each other, long, sharp, and powerful. In a mastodon whose remains were found in Ohio (Mastodon Ohioticus), the tusks were long, gradually rising at the ends in a graceful curve; while in the lower jaw appeared a small single tusk. These lower incisors were present in the young of both sexes of this species, but were soon shed by the female, one being retained in the male; so that it was a three-tusked mastodon. In the Mastodon longirostris, there were, besides the two upper tusks, two long, slender tusks in the lower jaw, a defence more formidable than that possessed by any animal of to-day. In the elephant, the enamel is confined to the apex of the tusks; but in the huge mastodons They often had longitudinal bands of enamel, more or less spirally disposed upon their surface. The molar or grinding teeth of the mastodons appeared, much as in the elephants, in a horizontal succession: the front or worn-out teeth were pushed out or lost before the complete development of the posterior ones, which gradually moved forward to take the place of those which were worn out or ground away. The process was not as perfect as that in the present elephant, described in chapter first; as sometimes three teeth were in each jaw of the mastodon at the same time. The teeth are the chief points of distinction between the elephant and the mastodon; and they are readily recognized by the grinding surfaces of the molars, which have transverse ridges, their summits being divided into conical cusps, with smaller ones often clustered about them. The enamel is quite thick: the cementum, which is so plentiful in the teeth of elephants, is very scanty, never filling in the interspaces of the ridges; so that the teeth present a serrated edge.
The great mastodon, many species of which are known, lived during what is known as the miocene time of geology, ranging from the middle of this period to the end of the pliocene, in the Old World, when they appear to have become extinct. In Ohio, the mastodons lived to a much later time, surviving until the late pliocene period, and were, as I have suggested, probably hunted by early man, if he was in existence at that time.
The mastodons had a wide geographical range, being found in almost every country. Nine species are known from Europe,—M. angustidens, M. borsoni, M. pentelici, M. pyrenaicus, M. taperoides, M. virgatidens, M. avernensis, M. dissimilis, and M. longirostris. Five species have been found in India, and four in North America. Two are from South America. Two only have been found in England.
Mastodons undoubtedly lived in Australia; a molar tooth of M. andium, or a similar form, having been found in New South Wales.