Читать книгу The Pleistocene of North America and its vertebrated animals - Oliver Perry Hay - Страница 31

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7. Addison Point, Washington County.—From the curator of the Portland Society of Natural History, Arthur H. Norton, the information is received that some portions of the skeleton of a walrus, several ribs, parts of two limbs, and a phalanx of a digit, had been found at Reef Point, near Addison Point, Maine. These remains are now in the collection of the society just named. They had been collected in 1881 by C. H. Boyd, who published an account of them (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. IV, p. 234). They had washed out of the bank on the eastern side of Pleasant River, about 3 miles below Addison. They had been buried in a stiff blue clay, about 2 feet above high-water. Above them there was 6 feet of the clay, and above this gravel and soil. Mr. Boyd stated that he had seen a tusk, with a part of the socket, which had been washed out at the same place.

8. Andrews Island, Knox County.—The American Museum Journal for 1912 (vol. XII, pp. 269–270) contains an article which calls attention to a walrus skull preserved in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It is reported as having been found by Sidney Norton, in December 1912, in 50 fathoms of water, near Andrews Island, off Owl’s Head, Penobscot Bay. One of the tusks is complete, the other is gone; also the occiput and zygomatic arches are missing. The bone is said to be quite well petrified, which shows that the skull is not a recent one.

9. Gardiner, Kennebec County.—In 1845 Charles Lyell visited (“Second Visit to the United States,” vol. I, p. 44) Gardiner, Maine, and examined a collection of fossil shells and crustacea which had been made by Mrs. Frederic Allen from the glacial deposits of that vicinity. He recognized the tooth of a walrus, which he stated was similar to the one procured by him on Martha’s Vineyard. This tooth is said by Packard (Mem. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. I, 1867, p. 246) to have been a tusk; and he was informed that it had been taken by Lyell to London and had been identified by Professor Richard Owen. Inasmuch as Owen regarded the specimen found on Martha’s Vineyard as a species distinct from the one now living on the Atlantic coast, it is to be supposed that the Gardiner specimen also was thought to be different from the latter. Packard, in another communication (Amer. Naturalist, vol. I, 1868, p. 268), states that the tooth of the walrus and some teeth of a supposed bison were discovered in the clay-beds at Gardiner by Lyell, or at least during his visit, but it is evident that they had been collected before his arrival.

In his discussion of the supposed bison teeth found in clay at Gardiner, Dr. J. A. Allen (The American Bisons, 1876, pp. 89, 91) gives us some information about the fate of Mrs. Frederic Allen’s collection. At her death it passed into the possession of her daughter, by whom the greater part of it was presented to Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine. Professor Manton Copeland, of this college, informs the writer that the walrus tusk is in their collection and bears the number FM20. It is badly shattered. The length is about 75 mm.

The important matter concerning the remains of the walrus found at Gardiner is to determine when the animal lived there. It is to be assumed that the tusk had been buried in the Pleistocene clay at that locality. This appears to belong to the closing period of the Wisconsin stage, but there has been some dispute about its age.

Packard (Mem. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. I, pp. 245–246) gives a list of the species which had been found in the clay at Gardiner. These are nearly all invertebrates and indicate a climate somewhat colder than that now existing there. Whether the time when the walrus lived at Gardiner was before or after the culmination of the Wisconsin ice period, it was so long ago that those deposits of clay, made in sea-water of considerable depth, have since been lifted above sea-level to a height of perhaps 200 feet.

10. Portland, Cumberland County.—In the American Naturalist, volume XII, 1878, page 633, it is recorded that the larger part of the skeleton of a walrus, including the skull, with tusks over 5 inches long, had lately been found in the Quaternary clays at Portland. It had been discovered by workmen excavating for the foundation of the transfer station of the Boston and Maine Railroad. The remains were partially embedded in a layer of blue clay a foot thick, itself overlain by 2 feet 2 inches of a lighter clay. The latter contained casts and shells of 11 species of mollusks. J. A. Allen, in his work already quoted, states that the skeleton was found at a depth of 7 feet. It was placed in the museum of the Portland Society of Natural History, and is still there, as reported by the curator, Arthur H. Norton.

Mr. Norton has sent the writer an extract from the report of the committee which investigated this discovery. The bed of blue clay in which the greater part of the skeleton was buried contained the following species of mollusks: Mya arenaria, Macoma sabulosa (calcarea), Mytilus edulis, Cardium (Serripes) grœndlandicum, Saxicava distorta, Nucula antiqua, Leda tenuisulcata, L. truncata (Yoldia glacialis), Natica clausa, N. pusilla, and Astarte striata. The lighter-colored clay above the blue clay was more sandy and adhered strongly to the bones. This clay contained Mya arenaria, Mytilus edulis, Serripes grœndlandicus, Astarte striata, Macoma calcarea, Nucula antiqua, Natica, and Balanus.

Above the lighter-colored clay just mentioned was a foot of a clay which contained wood and roots, the unused portion of the brick clay that once existed there, but which had been removed for the manufacture of bricks.

Inasmuch as the clay overlying the bed in which the remains were found contains marine shells, it is certain that since their deposition the land has been considerably elevated.

George N. Stone (Monogr. XXXIV, U. S. Geol. Surv., pp. 286–291) has discussed the age of the glacial deposits at Portland. Professor M. L. Fuller has written to the author that on the Maine coast the chief clay is known as the Leda and is found at Portland and Gardiner, and that it probably antedates the Wisconsin. This is not to be correlated with the Leda clay of the St. Lawrence Valley. It corresponds rather to Clapp’s “high-level clays” (Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., vol. XVIII, p. 505, seq.).