36. Macy, Miami County.—Near this place was found the fine skeleton of a mastodon which is mounted and on exhibition in the Public Museum at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A figure of this has been published by the writer (36th Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Indiana, p. 659).
This skeleton was found, according to Mr. H. L. Ward, director of the museum mentioned, in 1907, in the northwest quarter of section 29, township 29, range 4 east, between Macy and Deedsville. This locality is on the great moraine which lies north of Eel River and was produced by the ice fronts of the Michigan, the Saginaw, and the Lake Erie lobes. According to a sketch and some notes furnished to Mr. Ward by Mr. C. F. Fite, who secured the skeleton, it was lying at the lower end of an 8–shaped area of low muck land surrounded by rather high sandy land. The skeleton was buried at a depth of 4 or 5 feet, and the surface was miry and covered with water. Mr. Fite concluded from the position of the bones that the animal had become mired. He says in a letter to the present writer that the contents of the stomach had been preserved, but on exposure to the air became powdery like ashes.
Mr. Fite writes that he took up portions of another mastodon in the southwest quarter of section 26, township 29 north, range 5 east (Perry Township), and that he has the lower jaw and teeth. This animal was found in an old pond which had a growth of buttonwood. The bones were in a blue clay, itself overlain by a rich black soil.
Still another mastodon is reported by Mr. Fite from this region. This was found in the fall of 1915, in the northwest quarter of section 12, township 29 north, range 3 east. The remains were found at a depth of 4 feet and were in a pretty fair state of preservation, except the skull. The animal had been a large one.
37. Peru, Miami County.—In the collection of Yale University is a lower left last molar, No. 11689, labeled as having come from Peru, but there is no other information. Peru is on the Wabash River, a few miles south of Denver.
51. Jackson Township, Miami County.—Mr. Fite reports having found another mastodon in the southeast quarter of section 11, Jackson Township, Miami County (T. 25 N., R. 5 E.). This would be not far from Pipe Creek, between Somerset and Amboy, and some miles outside of the Mississinawa moraine. The writer has seen these bones, mostly vertebræ, and agrees with the identification.
38. Laketon, Wabash County.—Elrod and Benedict state (17th Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Indiana, p. 240) that in 1872 a nearly complete skeleton of a mastodon was found about 2 miles west of this place, in digging a ditch at the roadside. The exact location is in section 8, township 29 north, range 6 east, near the bank of Silver Creek. The political name of the township is Pleasant. This would be on the southern border of the great moraine already mentioned as running northeastward and southwestward, north of Eel River. After some litigation the skeleton was put on exhibition at Fort Wayne.
In throwing up an embankment for a bridge across Silver Creek, workmen found in the same township, as reported by Elrod and Benedict, bones of Elephas primigenius. They were under 5 feet of muck.
39. North Manchester, Wabash County.—Elrod and Benedict, as cited above, reported that a jawbone with two teeth in it had been found on the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 1, township 29, range 7 east. This is about 3 miles east of North Manchester. The description given of these teeth shows that the jaw was that of a mastodon. It was found beneath 2.5 feet of solid blue clay. According to Leverett’s map, the locality is not far west of the outer border of the Mississinawa moraine.
40. Lagrange, Lagrange County.—Professor Donaldson Bodine, now deceased, formerly of Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, informed the writer that there are in Wabash College some teeth and other parts of a mastodon, which were found in 1910 in some dredging operations near Lagrange.