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

The Moorland swamp forms part of a great plain about 25 miles wide lying between the “Lake border morainic system” (Leverett and Taylor, p. 222) and the present eastern shore of Lake Michigan. This plain appears to have been occupied by either ice or the waters of old glacial lakes until well near the close of the Wisconsin stage. The animal must have been one of the latest of his tribe to inhabit the State of Michigan. It may have lived long after the time of the musk-ox on whose skull the mastodon’s pelvis was lying.

12. Williams Township, Bay County.—In the annual reports of the Geological Survey of Michigan (1901, p. 253; 1905, p. 354), the discovery of the skeleton of a mastodon in Bay County was announced. It had been found in a depression called a pot-hole. The locality more accurately given is in the southwest corner of section 3, township 14 north, range 3 east. There was a fragment of a tusk 8.75 feet long and but little curved, a femur and its socket 9.5 inches across, one vertebra, and one tooth. These were found 3 or 4 feet from the surface. The remains were sent to Ypsilanti. An examination of Leverett and Taylor’s plate XVII (Monograph LIII) indicates that the mastodon could not probably have lived there until after the time of Lake Warren. At that time the ice-sheet occupied most of Lake Huron and a part of Saginaw Bay, but the climate of that region was probably, for a long time after the passing of Lake Warren, too raw and cold to please the mastodon, so that it was long afterward that this individual left his skeleton in the boggy hole.

13. Near Saginaw, Saginaw County.—Dr. A. C. Lane has reported (Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Michigan for 1901, p. 252) that he had found in the possession of farmers in Tittabawassee Township, Saginaw County, parts of a tusk, said to have come from a ditch near the course of the Parker drain, about 0.25 mile north of the south line of section 20, township 13 north, range 3 east, according to Mr. D. E. Williamson, of Saginaw. Dr. Lane also reported remains of a mastodon, including the lower jaw, found in digging a tile ditch on the “Willis farm.”

14. See page [85].

15. Saginaw County.—In October 1910, Mr. Ralph McQuiston sent to the writer photographs of three mastodon teeth found on a farm about 8 miles east of north of Elsie, Clinton County. He has since given this locality as being in the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of section 4, township 9 north, range 1 east. According to Leverett and Taylor’s glacial map of Michigan, this would be about 6 miles within the old Lake Warren beach-line and in sandy deposits laid down in water. The teeth were found at a depth of 3 feet. It may be that the animal died at that spot after the waters of Lake Warren had retired. If so, it would be interesting to determine the origin of the materials which covered the mastodon. On the other hand, the mastodon remains were possibly deposited there after the withdrawal of Lake Wayne and that the overlying materials were laid down by the water of Lake Warren, for this lake appears to have stood at a higher level than its predecessor. If the latter supposition is correct, mastodons could live not far away from the glacial front.

Further correspondence with Mr. McQuiston makes it appear improbable that the overlying materials were deposited by lake waters. Professor Leverett suggests that the animal had died in an old swale and had afterwards been buried under fine material washed in from the somewhat higher ground in the neighborhood. In that case the mastodon may have lived at any time after the lake waters had retired from the locality.

14. Alma, Gratiot County.—In Alma College, at Alma, Gratiot County, are some remains of a mastodon, found about 6.5 miles southeast of Alma, on the farm of Mr. Albert Smith. These remains were exhumed under the direction of Professor H. M. MacCurdy, of Alma College (Mich. Acad. Sci., Rep. XXI, p. 119). Various parts of the skull are preserved, one part showing beautifully the air-cells; also a fragment of a tooth, axis, three dorsal vertebræ, a few ribs, and a part of the pelvis. From Mr. Albert Smith it is learned that the remains were found on the southwest quarter of section 17, township 11 north, range 2 west. This, following Leverett and Taylor’s map, would be on the Owosso moraine, which here runs north from Ithaca, Gratiot County. A ditch was being dug through a peat-bog and the bones were met with at a depth of 4 feet or less from the surface. Professor MacCurdy wrote that the bones were lying on a bed of gravelly sand and were covered by a thin layer of mixed sand and vegetation, while over this was about 3 or 4 feet of well-decayed peat. The locality is about 2 miles from the shore-line of the glacial Lake Maumee, as mapped by Leverett and Taylor.

In the collection at Alma College is a left ramus of the jaw of a mastodon, which contains the second and the third true molars and the socket for the first molar. This jaw is reported to have been found on the William Pitt farm, about 7 miles from Alma and in Seville Township. The exact locality is given the writer by Professor MacCurdy as being in the south half of the northeast quarter of section 22, township 12 north, range 4 west. Professor C. A. Davis contributed for the writer the information that these bones were discovered in constructing ditches from 18 inches to probably 3 feet in depth.

In the Alma College collections are some mastodon remains, including three fine upper teeth, which were found in the southeast part of the village of Alma. The locality is described as being in the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section 3, township 11 north, range 3 west. Professor Charles A. Davis, deceased, formerly professor at Alma College, later connected with the Bureau of Mines at Washington, D. C., as peat expert, informed the writer that many years ago he exhumed parts of two skeletons of mastodons. Part of the bones lay in a small deposit of marl and were well preserved; the others lay on the edge of the marl-bed and above it and were not so well preserved. It appears that the locality had been covered permanently with water in which peat was growing. Associated with the bones in the marl were the fruits of the tamarack (Larix laricina) and of the black spruce (Picea mariana). These trees are growing there to-day, and extend far north into British America; hence, when those mastodons were living in the region about Alma the climate may have been as warm as it is to-day or much cooler.

Professor C. A. Davis informed the writer that a large number of mastodon bones were found about 1885 by a farmer who lived half a mile west of Riverdale. This was in Seville Township, No. 12 north, range 4 west, apparently in section 31. The discovery was made by the owner of the land, who found a number of teeth of a mastodon attached to the roots of a small elm tree which he pulled out of a swale on his farm. The bones were not more than 18 inches below the surface. Professor Davis regarded it as remarkable that remains of the mastodon should be so near the surface in ponds and swales where peat is growing.