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1. Albany, Albany County.—Dr. John M. Clarke, State geologist of New York, sent the writer some teeth of a species of Bison, probably B. bison, for which he gives the assurance that they were found somewhere in the vicinity of Albany, and in the “Albany clays.” These clays are supposed to belong to the Champlain stage. While this is somewhat further east than the bison has extended within historical times, it is entirely reasonable to suppose that at some time in the not distant past its range went to the Hudson. Indeed, Dr. G. M. Allen has recently shown (Jour. Mamm., vol. I, pp. 161–164) that at some time during the late Pleistocene a bison lived in the region of Cape Cod. The specimens sent by Dr. Clarke must have occupied eastern New York late in the Wisconsin stage.
2. Syracuse, Onondaga County.—In 1890 (Amer. Naturalist, vol. XXIV, p. 953), Professor Lucien Underwood reported the discovery of a skull of a bison in Syracuse, while a sewer was being excavated. Underwood stated that it was found at a depth of 10 feet, in a black muck. Professor E. D. Cope identified the skull as that of Bison bison. The present writer, in 1914, examined the skull at Syracuse University. He also talked with Mr. John Cunningham, who bought the skull from the finder, a laborer, paying him one dollar. Mr. Cunningham stated that he went to the spot and measured the depth from the surface, and found it to be 17 feet. Above the muck that inclosed the skull was what he regarded as clay. Dr. Burnett Smith has examined the deposits in a cellar dug within a few rods of the spot where the skull was found. The upper 7 or 8 feet was a mixture of shells and clay, and had been used to make a kind of cement. This discovery appears to make it certain that the bison lived in New York shortly after the Wisconsin ice had retired from the Finger Lake region.
3. Jamestown, Chautauqua County.—In the American Journal of Science, volume XXVII, 1835, page 166, is an account, by Knight, of the discovery, at Jamestown, of what were probably two teeth of a bison in a fragment of the jaw. These were encountered by John Hazeltine, in digging for a foundation of a building at the outlet of Chautauqua Lake, and at a depth of 10 feet. The soil was mostly gravel, but the jaw was said to have been lying in black muck. It was sent to Yale College, but was not recognized as belonging to Bison. Reasons were suggested why it did not belong to a young mastodon. The measurements given of the teeth agree well with the upper molars of an American buffalo. Joseph Leidy (Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., vol. VII, 1869, p. 371) quoted Knight’s account as indicating a buffalo. The discovery is interesting, taken in connection with the finding of the specimen at Syracuse.
NEW JERSEY.
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1. Trenton, Mercer County.—Mr. Ernest Volk (Papers Peabody Mus., vol. V, 1911, p. 209, plate CXX) reported the discovery of a part of a femur of Bison (probably B. bison) in the “yellow drift,” at Trenton, 2.5 feet from the surface. A first right upper molar, identified as that of Bison, was found in another sand-pit at a depth of 9 feet (op. cit., p. 136). This appears to have belonged in the Trenton gravel, but at that point the materials were apparently a mixture of sand and loam. The reader is referred to page 304, where the geology of this locality is described and a list of the species is given.
PENNSYLVANIA.
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1. Stroudsburg, Monroe County.—In Crystal Hill (Hartman’s) Cave, near Stroudsburg, was found a lower jaw containing the last molar, as noted by Leidy (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., 1880, p. 347; Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Pennsylvania for 1887, p. 5). Mercer (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1894, p. 98), mentions a tooth of the existing bison found in Hartman’s Cave.