The Pleistocene of North America / and its vertebrated animals from the states east of the Mississippi River and from the Canadian provinces east of longitude 95°

by Oliver Perry Hay

4. Plymouth, Washington County.—E. Emmons, in 1858 (North Carolina Geol. Surv. Agric., Eastern Counties, p. 197, figs. 19, 20), figured 2 teeth, an upper left molar or premolar and a hindermost left molar, which had been washed up on the beach at Plymouth. This place is on the south bank of Roanoke River. Judging from Emmons’s figures, one must conclude that these teeth belong to Equus leidyi.

SOUTH CAROLINA.

(Map [17].)

1. Beaufort, Beaufort County.—In the museum of Rutgers College, at New Brunswick, New Jersey, the writer has seen 6 teeth of Equus, presented by Mr. G. U. Shepard jr., and obtained on Coosaw River; but no more detailed information has been furnished. In the Charleston Museum is a tooth of Equus complicatus which was found by Mr. Earle Sloan, in Coosaw River.

2. Charleston, Charleston County.—The remains of horses, especially teeth, are among the most abundant Pleistocene fossils in the region around Charleston. Most of the specimens have been discovered in dredging for phosphate rock, and usually nothing is recorded about the exact locality where found or about the conditions of burial. A considerable number of well-preserved teeth have, however, been discovered in known localities and under defined conditions.

The earliest collection of fossils described from about Charleston was made by Professor F. S. Holmes, of Charleston, and Captain A. H. Bowman, U. S. Army. These fossils were sent to Dr. Joseph Leidy and described by him as early as 1858, but more fully in 1860, in Holmes’s “Post-Pleiocene Fossils of South Carolina.” Most of these fossils were obtained on the shores of Ashley River, about 10 miles above Charleston. From this locality were described 5 upper teeth of Equus complicatus (Leidy, op. cit., p. 102, plate XV, figs. 2–5, 7) and 2 lower ones (plate XVI, figs. 19, 21).

Of Equus leidyi (=E. fraternus Leidy) the author quoted described from Ashley River 2 lower teeth (op. cit., plate XVI, figs. 20, 22). Leidy (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1870, p. 98) reported that there were in the collection of C. N. Shepard, at Amherst College, teeth of Equus major (=E. complicatus) and E. fraternus (=E. leidyi) secured in the Ashley River deposit. Leidy, in 1873 (Contrib. Ext. Vert. Fauna West. Terrs., p. 245, plate XXXIII, figs. 14, 15) reported an upper molar and a lower one of E. complicatus, found in the “phosphate beds” of Ashley River.

From Doctor Swamp, Johns Island, southwest of Charleston, Leidy (op. cit., p. 103, plate XV, fig. 6) described an upper tooth as that of his Equus fraternus. This was afterwards made by Cope the type of this species; but Gidley (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. XIV, p. 111) determined that this type belongs itself to E. complicatus. It was this determination which made it necessary to give a new name, E. leidyi, to the teeth of medium size which had gone under the name of E. fraternus.

In the National Museum is a finely preserved upper right third or fourth premolar of what appears to be Equus complicatus which is recorded having been found in Wando River, northwest from Charleston. The tooth is 75 mm. high, 31 mm. long on the grinding-face, and 27 mm. wide. The enamel is much complicated. In Holmes’s “Post-Pleiocene Fossils of South Carolina,” on pages 102 and 104, Leidy mentions an upper second premolar of Equus fraternus found on Goose Creek, about 12 miles from Charleston. He added a paragraph on the geology. Further reference to this will be found on page [363]. In the Charleston Museum and in the private collections about Charleston the writer has seen many teeth of horses found in that region, most of them without statements about exact localities, though some were found in Stono River. The teeth of E. leidyi appear to be more numerous in the collections than those of E. complicatus. Many teeth of both species are contained in the Scanlan collection, made in the region about Charleston and now owned by Yale University. In this collection are found also two lower molars which the writer refers to Equus littoralis. The reader is referred to pages 362 to 366.

3. Richland County.—On the occasion referred to in the next paragraph, Robert W. Gibbes presented a tooth of a horse found in Richland district at a depth of 17 feet, in a slough, supposed to have been a former bed of Congaree River.