About 6 miles east of Williamsburg, a little more than 100 years ago, remains which pretty certainly belonged to the genus Mammut and probably to the species M. americanum (p. [113]) were discovered, said to have been found on the banks of York River; but by this was probably meant the banks of the flood-plain. The bones were found in marsh mud and were surrounded by roots of cypress trees. The adjacent bank was 20 feet higher than this level. The topographical map of the Williamsburg Quadrangle shows that an abrupt rise of this amount is to be found only about 10 miles away from the river. Whether the cypress roots were those of trees that had grown within recent years or whether they were remains of a Pleistocene forest, such as was exposed at Tappahannock, Essex County (Bull. IV, p. 186), the writer does not know. The information at hand about this case does not make it possible to pronounce on the geological age of the mastodon.

On page [28] an account is given of the discovery of a skull of a walrus on the Atlantic coast of Virginia, at Accomac. It had doubtless been washed up by the sea from a Pleistocene deposit. It is easiest to suppose that the walrus had been driven southward along the coast during the Wisconsin glacial stage; but possibly this happened during an earlier glacial time.

No vertebrate fossils of Pleistocene age appear to have come to light anywhere on the Piedmont Plateau, and little or nothing is known about its Pleistocene geology.

From the geological surveys we get little information about the Pleistocene formations of the Appalachian region. At most, mention is made of soils of undetermined age along the streams; and yet from this region have been obtained a very considerable number of Pleistocene vertebrates.

From Mr. Wyndham Robinson, of Abingdon, Washington County, the U. S. National Museum received in 1869 a tooth of Mammut americanum (p. [113]) and one of Equus complicatus (p. [189]). Nothing has been learned regarding the conditions under which they were unearthed. The horse-tooth points to an age preceding the Wisconsin drift.

From Saltville, in Smyth County, the following forms have been obtained:

That a crocodile should have lived in this region during the Pleistocene is remarkable. Megalonyx dissimilis is otherwise known only from Natchez, Mississippi, from deposits which appear to be of about Illinoian or Sangamon age. The horse-tooth points to about this time or earlier, while the other species do not contradict this conclusion. The astragalus referred to Odocoileus probably belongs to some other genus.

Mr. M. D. Mount sent to the U. S. National Museum remains of Bison (p. [259]), Mammut americanum (p. [113]), and Elephas primigenius (p. [145]). These, he reported, had been found at a depth not greater than 8 feet in excavating for the city reservoir. He has written that the valley of Holston River at Saltville, within about 80 years, had been a lake, at least at certain times of the year, and that the reservoir was excavated at the margin of this low area.

Mr. O. A. Peterson (Ann. Carnegie Mus., vol. XI, 1917, pp. 469–474) reported from this place the crocodile, the megalonyx, cervalces, the supposed deer, the horse-tooth, and remains of mastodons. The bones were found in a sink-hole, in a layer of coarse gravel, pebbles and cobblestones, a fact indicating that a stream of some size had occupied the place. Overlying this layer was one in which there were fragments of large river shells. The bone layer appears to have been only about 4 feet from the surface. Peterson concluded that at the close of the Pleistocene or later the remains had been moved and redeposited from some place not far away, but this would not affect the geological age of the fossils and it is evident that remains of vertebrates are widely dispersed in that valley. All the species reported are extinct, but only large forms were secured.