As shown by Fairchild’s plate 17 (Bull. 160, New York Geol. Surv.) and Coleman’s plate 22 (Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., XV, p. 347) this town is situated within the Iroquois beach. The elephant could, therefore, hardly have lived at or before the time of the formation of the beach; in reality it probably lived long after the lake had retired to its present limits.
In his “Catalogue of Casts of Fossils,” 1866, page 37, Henry A. Ward gave a figure of a cast of an elephant tooth, No. 143, the original of which was said to have been found at St. Catharines. This tooth may be the one now at Ottawa, but if so the figure is incorrect.
2. Hamilton, Wentworth County.—In 1863 (Canad. Nat. and Geol., vol. VII, p. 135), a lower jaw of an elephant was described under the name Euelephas jacksoni Briggs and Foster. This had been found near Hamilton, at the extreme western end of Lake Ontario. It was mentioned and figured as Euelephas jacksoni in the same year by W. E. Logan (Rep. Geol. Surv. Canada, p. 914, figs. 495, 497). The specific name, however, is not to be credited to Briggs and Foster, for it was proposed by W. W. Mather in 1838 (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XXXIV, p. 362, figures) for a lower jaw of an elephant found in Jackson County, Ohio. This jaw is, however, from the description and the figure, wholly indeterminable. Lambe (Ottawa Naturalist, vol. XII, p. 136) presents a short history of the specimen found at Hamilton. It was reported first by T. Cottle in 1852 (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 2, vol. X, p. 395; reprint in Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XV, 1853, p. 282). Besides the jaw, lacking most of the left ramus, there was found a much-curved tusk nearly 7 feet long.
The writer has had the opportunity to examine this jaw, now in the Victoria Museum at Ottawa. It is believed to belong to Elephas columbi. The finely preserved last molar has been worn on about 9 of the ridge-plates, and this worn surface is about 110 mm. long. There are 24 plates present, and 8 of these occupy a 100–mm. line. The hinder plates lean forward and the base of the tooth is very convex.
Cottle reported that the remains were discovered at a depth of 40 feet from the surface and at an elevation of 60 feet above the level of the lake. It is stated on the label that the elevation above the lake was 70 feet, and this is the height given by Logan (Geol. Canada, 1863, p. 914). The author stated also that at an elevation of 7 feet more were found antlers of Cervus canadensis and the jaw of a beaver.
VERMONT.
(Map [12].)
1. Mount Holly, Rutland County.—In 1849 (Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., vol. II, p. 100), Professor Louis Agassiz exhibited before the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science a tooth and a tusk of an elephant, discovered in making excavations for the Rutland and Burlington Railroad, somewhere on the slope of Mount Holly, Rutland County. It was said to have been found lying under an erratic boulder. Agassiz was doubtful as to the specific identity of the animal. In 1850 (Amer. Jour. Sci., ser. 2, vol. IX, p. 256), Zadock Thompson gave a brief account of this discovery. The remains were found, he said, in Mount Holly Township, at an elevation of 1,360 feet above sea-level, in a deposit of muck, at a depth of about 9 feet. This muck-bed is located on the divide between the streams which flow into Connecticut River and those which empty into Lake Champlain. In 1853 (“History of Vermont,” App., p. 14) Thompson presented a more extended report on the discovery. This is reprinted in Edward Hitchcock’s “Report on the Geology of Vermont,” 1861, page 176. The elevation is given here as 1,415 feet; the location is said to be east of the summit station. On the Wallingford topographic sheet of the U. S. Geological Survey the station named Summit is shown to have an elevation of 1,500 feet. First, there was found a tooth lying on gravel beneath 11 feet of peat; soon afterward a tusk was discovered at a distance of 80 feet, and later the other tusk and some bones were met with not far away. The grinder was in an excellent state of preservation. The length of one tusk along the convexity of the curve is given as 80 inches, while the distance direct from the base to the tip was 60 inches. A figure of the tusk was given by Hager in the second volume of the 1861 report just referred to, on page 934. According to Agassiz’s statement, the tooth and tusk were taken to the Lawrence Scientific School, Cambridge.
Dr. J. C. Warren (“Monogr. on Mastodon giganteus,” ed. 2, 1855, p. 162, plate XXVIII, fig. B) figured and described the tooth. The length was given as 11 inches at the base, and the number of ridge-plates as 22. This would give an average of 8 plates in a 100–mm. line. This number and the general appearance of the tooth indicate that the animal was Elephas columbi, instead of E. primigenius. The difference between this tooth and that of E. primigenius is well shown by the figure of a tooth of E. primigenius from Zanesville, Ohio, figured on the same plate with the Vermont tooth. This tooth is now in the American Museum at New York.
Thompson reported the presence of many billets of wood, about 18 inches long, in the bottom of the muck, the work of beavers.