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

VIRGINIA.

15. Accomac County.—In the Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, volume II, 1828, page 271, Messrs. Mitchill, Smith, and Cooper made a report on a fossil walrus skull found along the Virginia coast somewhere in Accomac County. Only the anterior half of the skull was secured. According to this report, portions of the tusks were preserved, but were much mutilated. There were present also 4 of the grinding teeth. The skull was described as being remarkably hard and heavy and the tusks were almost agatized. The sutures of the skull had mostly closed up; hence the animal was evidently an old one. The specimen bore the marks of having been in salt water, and was said to have been found on the beach.

This is the specimen which DeKay, in 1842 (Zool. of N. Y., pt. I, p. 56, plate XIX, fig. 1), made the type of his Trichechus virginianus. Newberry, in 1873 (Proc. Lyc. Nat. Hist. New York, p. 71), identified the specimen as belonging to the existing Atlantic species. Cope (Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc., vol. XIV, 1874, p. 17) does not mention the presence of tusks. He supposed that there was, at that part of the coast, glacial drift, out of which the skull had been washed. There are, however, no such deposits in that region. This specimen was placed in the collection of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, but according to Rhoads, was afterward destroyed in a fire.

On examination of G. B. Shattuck’s work on the Pleistocene of Maryland (Maryland Geol. Surv., Pliocene and Pleistocene volume, p. 95, plate I), it seems that the coast of Virginia in Accomac County is occupied by the Talbot formation. This, according to his theory, corresponds, at least the part nearest the coast, with the Cape May formation of New Jersey. Hence we might conclude that the walrus skull in question had become buried, probably during the Wisconsin glacial stage. The present writer regards the principal part of the Talbot terrace as being much older.

Messrs. W. B. Clark and B. L. Miller (Virginia Geol. Surv. Bull., No. IV, p. 187) recognize the presence of the Talbot formation in Accomac County, where it seems to reach a thickness of 100 feet; but the authors add that part of this may belong to earlier Pleistocene formations.

NORTH CAROLINA.

16. Kitty Hawk, Currituck County.—In the Marsh collection of fossils belonging to Yale University is a part of a skull found somewhere near Kitty Hawk. No particulars regarding the exact place of discovery accompany the specimen. It has already been described on page [27]; and, while there are some differences between it and the recent skulls used for comparison, it is not believed that a distinct species is indicated.

According to L. W. Stephenson’s map of the Coastal Plain of North Carolina (North Carolina Geol. and Econom. Surv., vol. III, plate XIII), the coast at Kitty Hawk and for about 50 miles back of this is occupied by the Pamlico formation. This corresponds to the upper part of the Talbot of Maryland, and it, or part of it, may have been deposited at the close of the Pleistocene. So far as the present writer knows, there is nothing to show the character of the climate then prevailing. As this Pamlico nowhere rises more than 25 feet above sea-level, and as the thickness is usually only from 15 to 20 feet, it is possible that the walrus skull found at Kitty Hawk had been unearthed by the waves from the Chowan formation or some still earlier deposit.

SOUTH CAROLINA.

17. Charleston.—In 1876 Leidy announced (Proc. Phila. Acad., 1876, p. 80) that a complete tusk of a walrus had been found in the Ashley River, near Charleston. This tusk Leidy described and figured in 1877 (Jour. Phila. Acad., vol. VIII, fig. 6). It had evidently been dredged from the river in collecting phosphate rock, as have been most of the fossils of that region. The tusk was 13 inches long. Near the base it measured 3.62 inches and transversely 1.75 inches. Leidy especially noticed the shortness of the tusk as compared with the diameter, but concluded that the tusk might, during the life of the individual, have been broken off and worn obliquely at the end.