At the Davenport (Iowa) Academy of Natural Science the writer examined a tooth of an elephant labeled as having been found on Mount Holly in excavating for the Vermont Central Railroad. The length along the base is 300 mm., the height of the ninth plate is 160 mm., the length of the grinding-surface 160 mm. There are in all 24 plates, the 10 anterior ones of which are worn. There are 7 ridge-plates in a 100–mm. line, measured on one side of the tooth. This tooth is regarded as belonging to Elephas columbi; it certainly belonged to another individual than the one that Warren figured. It is almost certain that the animals represented by the teeth and skeletal remains found on Mount Holly lived after the retreat of the ice from those mountains; and one may suppose that local glaciers lingered long after the main ice-front had abandoned the region. The animals lived certainly as late as near the close of the Pleistocene, if not at the beginning of the Recent; they may have been living on those mountains while the basin of Lake Champlain was an arm of the sea.
NEW YORK.
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1. Homer, Cortland County.—In 1847 (Amer. Jour. Agric. and Sci., vol. VI, p. 31, fig.), Samuel Woolworth reported that an elephant tooth had been found on the bank of a small stream, about 2 miles northwest of Homer. Emmons, in 1858 (Geol. Surv. North Carolina, East. Cos., p. 200), figured the same tooth. In his Manual of Geology (ed. 2, 1860, p. 242, fig. 207) he stated that this tooth was found in Cortland County. Henry A. Ward, of Rochester, advertised and sold casts of this elephant tooth, as the writer is informed by Mr. Frank H. Ward, of Ward’s Natural Science Establishment. It is almost certain that this elephant lived in the neighborhood of Homer after the Wisconsin glacial ice had begun its retreat to the far north.
2. Elmira, Chemung County.—In the collection of the American Museum of Natural History in New York is a part of an elephant tooth (Cat. No. 10488) which the writer identifies as belonging to Elephas columbi, and which is recorded as having been found at Elmira. There are only 3 ridge-plates in the fragment. As to the time during the Pleistocene when this species lived in New York, all that can be said is that it was during the last half of the Wisconsin stage. No specimens have been found as close to the glacial lakes preceding Lake Ontario as in the cases of Elephas primigenius, but this may be due to accidents of preservation or to failures of discovery.
NEW JERSEY.
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1. Middletown, Monmouth County.—In 1818 (Cuvier’s “Theory of the Earth,” p. 384, plate I, figs. 2, 5), S. L. Mitchill referred to a tooth of an elephant found somewhere about Middletown. In his “Catalogue of Organic Remains,” 1826, page 10, Mitchill mentioned a singular boat-shaped tooth of an elephant, found on Bennett’s farm, Middletown, New Jersey. Both references are to the same tooth; the shape was due to the wear the tooth had suffered. It was said to come from the region where the horse remains were obtained. This tooth was a lower right hindermost molar, much worn. It evidently belonged to Elephas columbi. We have no other information about the specimen. It appears probable that the deposits which yielded remains of horses and of elephants are to be referred to an interglacial stage, at least as old as the Sangamon. The finding of a bone of Megatherium along the New Jersey coast suggests that the Aftonian may be represented there.
PENNSYLVANIA.
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