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

2. Pender County.—Professor H. H. Brimley, of the State Museum at Raleigh, North Carolina, has informed the writer that there are in that museum some remains of mastodon from Pender County; but nothing more is known to the present writer about the nature of these remains or about the locality where they were found.

3. Duplin County.—From the same source it is learned that there are in the collection at Raleigh teeth of mastodon which had been found in Duplin County.

4. Goldsboro, Wayne County.—In the State Museum at Raleigh is a left ramus of a mastodon, collected near Goldsboro. The writer has examined this important specimen and has also received a photograph of it, sent by Professor H. H. Brimley. This is evidently the jaw described by Leidy (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1871, p. 113) from photographs received from Professor W. C. Kerr, then State geologist of North Carolina. This jaw was recorded as having been obtained from gravel overlying Miocene marl, near Goldsboro.

This specimen presents the peculiarity of having two tusks at the front of the symphysis. The diameter of these is 45 mm. How long they were originally can not be determined. The form of this jaw and presence of two large incisor tusks indicates that this specimen belongs to Mammut progenium. The front molar present, M₂, has a length of 122 mm. and a width of 88 mm. Leidy regarded this jaw as having belonged to a male animal. Professor E. Emmons (Geol. Surv. North Carolina, 1858, p. 199) mentions that a large number of bones had been found in a marl pit near Goldsboro.

5. Jacksonville, Onslow County.—In the collection of the State Museum at Raleigh the writer has seen a part of a skeleton of a mastodon, found near Jacksonville and exhumed by Mr. T. W. Adicks. A considerable part of the skull, including upper teeth, both upper tusks, lower jaw, and some limb-bones, were secured. The animal was evidently a fully mature one, as there were present in the jaws the last and the next to the last molars; but these were not greatly worn. In the lower jaw there were no tusks, but the tip of the jaw seemed to indicate that earlier in life these might have been present. The upper tusks are unusually short. One is 33 inches (841 mm.) long, 94 mm. in diameter at the base, and 120 mm. about the middle of the length. At the base is a pulp-cavity whose depth is 230 mm. The distal end of this tusk is much worn, evidently during the life of the animal. On one side is a flat surface 120 mm. long and 75 mm. wide which is directed obliquely to the plane of the curvature of the tusk. Opposite this surface is another whose plane is parallel with that of the curvature of the tusk. About 50 mm. from its tip the tusk is crossed by a groove nearly 20 mm. wide and 42 mm. deep, which appears to have been produced by the drawing of branches or roots across the tusk. About 60 mm. further back there is another groove, broader and shallower. The other tusk is 940 mm. long. Near its extremity it is crossed by three grooves, one of which, about 55 mm. behind the tip, runs two-thirds of the way around the tusk.

The small size of the tusks makes it pretty certain that this animal was a female. The jaw does not differ especially from that of a Late Wisconsin mastodon, apparently about one-sixth taller, found near Winamac, Indiana, and now mounted in the U. S. National Museum.

6. Maysville, Jones County.—From Professor H. H. Brimley, of the State Museum, at Raleigh, the writer has learned that tusks and teeth of Mammut americanum had been secured for that museum at Maysville. This is situated on White Oak River. Photographs show the teeth are lower hindermost molars, right and left. The writer has seen these teeth; likewise upper second and third molars and the tusks. The latter are of medium size, having a diameter of 120 mm. at the base. The pulp-cavity is 190 mm. deep. The enamel of all the teeth is rather rough and corrugated.

7. Sixteen miles southeast of Newbern, Pamlico County.—On the left bank of Neuse River, at a point said to be 16 miles below Newbern, several vertebrate fossils were collected many years ago. The collection appears to have been made by the botanist Nuttall; but the first mention found by the writer is a paper by H. B. Croom, in 1835 (Amer. Jour. Sci., ser. 1, vol. XXVII, pp. 168–171). He stated that the locality was on the north bank of Neuse River, on the land of Mr. Benners, who had dug several pits in order to obtain marl. In these pits, some reaching a depth of 25 feet, many fossil shells, sharks’ teeth, and bones of marine fishes were found. These marls appear to belong to the Pleistocene (Stephenson, North Carolina Geol. and Econom. Surv., vol. III, p. 289). In the same pits were found teeth and bones of various Pleistocene mammals. A few of the fossils, as the great shark tooth, certainly belonged to Tertiary deposits. Croom states that there were fragments of the horns of a fossil elk; also a mastodon tooth which had a breadth of 7 inches and a depth of 9.5 inches. It is not improbable that this was a tooth of an elephant. Teeth, supposed to belong to a fossil elk and which had a breadth of 3 inches and a depth of 4.5 inches, were probably hindermost milk molars of Mammut americanum. Harlan (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XLIII, 1842, p. 143) indicated that he had seen in the collection made by Nuttall remains of the mastodon; also of a supposed Sus, an elephant, elk, deer, horse, seal, cetaceans, a tortoise, shark, skate, snake, and fish. This collection apparently passed into the hands of T. A. Conrad. J. W. Foster (Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., vol. X, p. 166) stated that Conrad had many years previously obtained these animals near Newbern. Besides those mentioned he included a hippopotamus. This identification was probably based on milk tusks or lower tusks of the mastodon.

8. Harlowe, Carteret County.—In 1828 (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XIII, p. 348), Elisha Mitchell wrote that in digging the Clubfoot and Harlowe Canal, remains of both the elephant and the mastodon had been found. Under this number may be mentioned the finding of a jaw of a mastodon in the Inland Waterway Canal, which appears to run some miles east of the old Clubfoot and Harlowe Canal. This specimen is, or was recently, in the laboratory of the U. S. Fish Commission at Beaufort.

9. Pitt County.—In 1871 (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., p. 113), Leidy reported that an isolated lower last molar tooth of Mammut americanum, but accompanied by the jaw, had been obtained in Pitt County. No more exact locality was mentioned. In the U. S. National Museum (No. 202) is a lower right hindermost molar which was found in Pitt County.