The mastodon, together with the mammoth, made their appearance about the middle of the Miocene epoch. At the close of the Tertiary period the mastodon became extinct on the Eastern Continent, but continued in North America to be a companion of man well on toward the close of the Glacial period. Many perfect skeletons have been found in the deposits of this period in North America. “One magnificent specimen was found in a marsh near Newburg, New York, with its legs bent under the body, and the head thrown up, evidently in the very position in which it mired. The teeth were still filled with the half-chewed remnants of its food, which consisted of twigs of spruce, fir, and other trees; and within the ribs, in the place where the stomach had been, a large quantity of similar material was found.”[DL]
[DL] Le Conte’s Geology (edition of 1891), p. 582.
Fig. 89.—Skeleton of Rhinoceros tichorhinus.
The Rhinoceros is now confined to Africa and southern Asia; but the remains of four species have been found in America, Europe, and northern Asia, in deposits of the Glacial period. In company with that of the mammoth, already spoken of, a carcass of the woolly rhinoceros was found in 1771 in the frozen soil of northern Siberia. The bones of other species have been found as far north as Yorkshire, England. In the valley of the Somme there was found “the whole hind limb of a rhinoceros, the bones of which were still in their true relative position. They must have been joined together by ligaments and even surrounded by muscles at the time of their interment.” An entire skeleton was found near by. The gravel terrace in which these occurred is about forty feet above the floor of the valley, and must have been formed subsequent to some of the strata which contained the remains of human art. In America the bones are found in the gold-bearing gravels of California, in connection with human remains.
Fig. 90.—Skull of cave-bear (Ursus spelæus),
The Bear was represented in Europe in palæolithic times by three species, of which only one exists there at the present time. But during the Glacial period the grizzly bear, now confined to the western part of America, and the extinct cave-bear were companions, or enemies as the case may be, of man throughout Europe. The cave-bear was of large size, and his bones occur almost everywhere in the lower strata of sediment in the caves of England.