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

This locality is within the area of the Illinoian drift. On the east, a few miles away, is the foot of the great Shelbyville moraine; while very near, toward the west, there are, according to Leverett (op. cit., plate VI) widely spread deposits brought down by the Illinois River from the Wisconsin ice-sheet. The geological conditions here seem to make it probable that both animals lived near the close of the Wisconsin stage. There may, however, have been a considerable interval between the times of the two animals; for peat, sometimes at least, accumulates very slowly. In proof of this may be cited the case of mastodons found near the surface of peat swamps in Michigan. In the same peat-swamp at Manito were found at depths of 3 or 4 feet some Indian flint implements. These are in the collection of the U. S. National Museum.

10. Knox County.—On page 14 of Netta C. Anderson’s list, already mentioned, Professor Albert Hurd, curator of the museum of Knox College, Galesburg, reported that there was in the collection a well-preserved tooth of a mastodon found in the bed of Spoon River, which runs across the southeastern part of the county. Exactly where along this stream the tooth was discovered is not on record.

11. Cambridge, Henry County.—In Netta C. Anderson’s list, on page 12, Professor Frank C. Baker, then curator of the Chicago Academy of Science, reported that there is in the collection a part of a tusk of a mastodon, found at Cambridge, in digging a well, at a depth of 16 feet.

In this case one can not be certain that the tusk did not belong to one of the elephants. From information accompanying the specimen one can determine little about the exact geological age of the animal. It is probably post-Illinoian.

12. Rural Township, Rock Island County.—Dr. J. A. Udden (in Netta C. Anderson’s list, p. 18) reported that there is in the collection of Augustana College, Rock Island, a well-preserved tooth of a mastodon, found in 1900, in a creek in the township named, in the southeastern corner of the county. Udden gives the locality as being in section 19, township 16 north, range 1 west.

In the same institution (J. A. Udden, Augustana Coll., Pub. No. V, p. 12) is a part of a proboscidean tusk, referred to the mastodon, which Dr. Udden states was found near Milan, at the base of the loess, in the red oxidized layer of the Illinoian boulder clay. The locality is on the north side of Rock River and on the east side of the Milan road south of Rock Island. The conditions would seem to indicate that the animal had lived about the close of the Illinoian drift stage.

About June 15, 1916, Mr. A. Daxon, of Omaha, Nebraska, sent photographs of two mastodon teeth to the U. S. National Museum for identification. These teeth were found in Bowling Township, Rock Island County, 10 or 12 miles south of Rock Island, but no further information about them has been secured.

Professor J. A. Paarmann, curator of the Davenport, Iowa, Academy of Sciences, has written that he had seen a finely preserved mastodon tooth which had been picked up on the surface of the ground a mile west of Milan. The land around about is swampy. The tooth was in the possession of Edward Herbert, Rock Island, Illinois, but the present writer has not been able to get any information from him.

13. Sterling, Whiteside County.—In the U. S. National Museum (No. 4222) is a mastodon molar, recorded as found near the town named. It was transmitted through the U. S. Geological Survey and credited to T. A. Schroder. It is said to have been found with other teeth and parts of the skeleton, so that there is little probability that the skeleton was disturbed after its original interment. It is to be regretted that so little information was allowed to come with the specimen.

Sterling is in a region of very complicated Pleistocene geology. South of it is an extensive region of swamps and deposits referred by Leverett (op. cit., plate VI) to “sand and gravel plains of Wisconsin age.” North of the town is drift mapped by Leverett as Iowan, but which is now regarded as Illinoian. As to the age of the tooth in question, no probable conclusion can be formed, except that it is of post-Illinoian time.