2. Chester, Randolph County.—A note in the Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, volume VII, 1883, page 351, taken apparently from a newspaper at Chester, states that a mastodon’s tusk and skull had been discovered in Chester. It was expected that Professor A. H. Worthen, State geologist of Illinois at that time, would arrive and conduct the exhumation. Later (Geol. Surv. Illinois, vol. VIII, p. 8) Worthen stated that a mastodon had been found at Chester; but no details were added. With so little knowledge as to exact locality and the surroundings the discovery is of little value.
Within Area Covered by Illinoian Drift.
3. Beaucoup, Washington County.—In 1857, the geologist J. W. Foster reported (Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Science, vol. X, Nat. Hist., p. 163) that remains of a mastodon had been discovered by workmen in making an excavation along the Illinois Central Railroad, near the town of Beaucoup. The bones were at a depth of 18 feet in the prairie drift, below the yellow clay and in the older or reddish clay. No details were given as to what bones were found or what was done with them.
Most of this county is covered by Illinoian drift. Leverett (Monogr. U. S. Geol. Surv., XXXVIII, p. 770) states that on the higher lands this has a depth of from 10 to 20 feet. One might suppose that at a depth of 18 feet some pre-Illinoian interglacial deposit had been encountered. It is not at all probable that the bones of the mastodon were inclosed in the drift itself.
4. East St. Louis, St. Clair County.—Dr. F. V. Hayden (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1866, p. 316) announced the finding of a tooth of a mastodon in the bluffs opposite St. Louis. This was probably in St. Clair County.
In the American Museum of Natural History, New York, is a lower right last molar of a mastodon, labeled as having been found in St. Clair County, but there is no other information.
In the collection of the St. Louis Academy of Science there are two teeth of a mastodon, right and left last upper molars, which had been brought in by a boy and presented to the Academy. He said that they had been found in East St. Louis and had been in the possession of the family for some time. The length of the left molar is 175 mm., the width 102 mm. While the valley of the Mississippi River is here filled by deposits laid down during the Wisconsin stage (Leverett, op cit., plate VI) and by later-formed alluvium, Illinoian drift enters into the bluffs, and perhaps pre-Illinoian interglacial soils. It is, therefore, of interest that there should be an exact record made of the place of discovery of every bone and tooth found, the character of the deposit, and the depth of burial. In all the cases here recorded no such records have been kept.
5. Alton, Madison County.—In 1866 (Geol. Surv. Illinois, vol. I, p. 315; 1871, Amer. Naturalist, vol. V, p. 607), A. H. Worthen reported that a part of a jawbone of a mastodon, with two teeth in it, had been found in the lower part of the loess, 30 feet below the surface, at some point just above Alton. The jaw was separated from the limestone by 2 or 3 feet of local drift. The bone was of a chalky whiteness and in a fine state of preservation. Worthen wrote that the loess on the bluffs in this region is from 40 to 80 feet in thickness, but appears in places to have been removed by erosion, so that it comes down to the rock.
Reference is made by Worthen later (Geol. Surv. Illinois, vol. VIII, p. 8) to the discoveries of vertebrate fossils in the drift and loess of this region. He mentions that Hon. William McAdams found, at Alton and Chester, remains of mastodon, mammoth, megalonyx, castoroides, and “Bos primigenius.” McAdams’s collection is now in the U. S. National Museum and a list of the species is presented on page [339]. These species were described by the writer in 1920 (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. LVIII, pp. 109–117). In it are only two fragments of molars of this species.
In the collection at Yale University (No. 11713) is an upper left last molar of a mastodon, obtained from Mr. McAdams. The enamel is very white. There is on the label the date “Feb. 21, 1888.” This may be one of the teeth referred to above, and the date may refer to the date of purchase.