1. Evansville, Vanderburg County.—So far as the writer knows, remains of extinct horses have been found in Indiana only at the mouth of Pigeon Creek, a short distance below Evansville. Only a single vertebra, a last cervical, was secured. This formed part of a collection made at the place named by Mr. Francis A. Lincke. The collection was described by Dr. Leidy (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1854, p. 199). The bone was referred to Equus americanus, a name employed at that time for the horse now known as Equus complicatus. Although it would usually be impossible to identify a species of horse on such materials, it is probable that Leidy was correct. The geological age of the bone-bed is discussed on page [32]. It is concluded that the age is most probably the Sangamon, but possibly Aftonian. The same species has been found at Bigbone Lick, above Louisville, on the Kentucky side. The deposits there overlie the Illinoian drift and are, in part at least, Sangamon.
Associated with the horse bone at Pigeon Creek were megalonyx, a probably extinct bison, the Virginia deer, a tapir, and the extinct wolf Ænocyon dirus.
ILLINOIS.
(Map [17].)
1. On the line between Bond and Fayette Counties.—In 1899, Leidy (Trans. Wagner Inst., vol. II, p. 39, figure) described under the name of Equus major an equine maxilla, containing 4 premolars, sent him by A. H. Worthen, State geologist of Illinois. This maxilla had been found in a bog between Bond and Fayette counties. It was referred by Gidley (Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. XIV, p. 135, fig. 24) to Equus pectinatus Cope. The specimen is in the collection of the State museum at Springfield and has been studied by the writer, who regards it as belonging to Equus complicatus. A fossil horse-tooth found at Bigbone Lick, Kentucky, greatly resembles one of the premolars of this jaw.
The region where this jaw was found lies within the area of the Illinoian drift; and, inasmuch as the specimen was found on a bog lying on this drift, the animal must have lived after the withdrawal of the Illinoian ice-sheet. The bog deposit belonged probably to the Sangamon stage.
The writer has endeavored earnestly, but in vain, to obtain more exact details regarding the locality where the jaw was found and the depth of interment.
2. Alton, Madison County.—At a meeting of the St. Louis Academy of Science, December 4, 1882 (Trans. St. Louis Acad. Sci., vol. IV, p. LXXX), William McAdams reported he had seen the fossil tooth of a horse from near Alton. No details were added, except that all the horses he had seen from the drift were large animals, while those from the bad lands of Dakota were mostly quite small.
In the McAdams collection, an account of which will be given on page [339], is a fragment of an incisor of a horse. It has on it McAdams’s No. 25. It is doubtful that this tooth was found in the loess. All the fossils of that collection purporting to have been found in the loess are very white, while this is of a brownish color, and there is a coat of iron oxide adhering to some parts of it. This may or may not be the tooth mentioned by McAdams as above reported.
3. Greene County.—At the meeting of the St. Louis Academy of Science just referred to, Mr. McAdams stated that teeth of an extinct horse had been brought up from the bottom of a well being dug in Greene County. More exact situation and the depth of the well were not mentioned.