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(Maps 5, 8.)

1. Church, Hillsdale County.—In 1901 there was found, on the farm of Mr. Levi Wood, near Church, the greater part of the skeleton of a small mastodon. This was exhumed by an agent of the U. S. National Museum and is exhibited there. The animal is small and probably a female. The bones were found in a peat-swamp, not far from the surface. Those most deeply buried were only 4 feet from the surface, while others were down only about 2.5 feet.

The whole of the township in which Church is situated is occupied by a part of the Mississinawa moraine, the outermost one formed by the Erie lobe of the Wisconsin ice. So far as the ground is concerned, the mastodon might have lived there long before the close of the Wisconsin stage at any time after the exposure of the moraine.

This mastodon was described and figured by Mr. C. W. Gilmore in 1906 (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. XXX, p. 610, plate XXXV).

2. Adrian, Lenawee County.—In the American Journal of Science (vol. XXXVIII, 1864, p. 223), Dr. Alexander Winchell reported the discovery of remains of a mastodon on section 7 of the township of Adrian, Lenawee County. The locality is said to have been about 7 miles northwest of the town of Adrian. The township must therefore be that designated as 6 south, 4 east. Winchell gave a list of the bones, and this comprises probably about half of the skeleton, including the skull. According to Winchell, these remains were found at a depth of only about 2 feet in a peat-bog; beneath this peat, which was 2.5 feet thick, was marly clay, passing at the depth of 4 feet into loose sand.

According to the glacial map of Leverett and Taylor, the locality would lie well outside the limits of Lake Maumee and would be on the Fort Wayne moraine. Probably a long while after the Wisconsin glacial sheet had retired from Michigan, this mastodon died there and became covered by the thin deposit of peat, as found. Here may be noted likewise some remains of a mastodon which Winchell, in the same paper, says had been found in Adrian.

In the U. S. National Museum (No. 188) there is a lower jaw of a mastodon, reported to have been found in a lacustrine marsh in this county, in the “same locality as the Decker mastodon in Adrian College.” A note states that with this were found bones of deer, elk, and castoroides. (See further, under the account of the skull of Castoroides found at Adrian.)

In the annual report of the Michigan Geological Survey for 1901, page 253, A. C. Lane mentioned that at Clinton, Lenawee County, Mr. P. B. Gragg had found several teeth and bones of mastodon. These seem to have been buried in the same glacial drain-way as those found in Adrian township.

27. Clayton, Lenawee County.—Mr. George Townsend, of Clayton, Michigan, has informed the writer that he has the lower jaw of a mastodon which he found while digging a posthole on his farm near that town. The locality is described as the middle of the line between the southeast and northeast quarters of southeast quarter of section 7, T. 7. S., R. 2 E., and near a creek. The township is Dover. According to Leverett and Taylor the immediate region is covered by glacial ground moraine.

3. Howell, Livingston County.—Dr. A. C. Lane (op. cit., p. 252) reported that a lower tooth and a part of a pelvis had been obtained in dredging the Shiawassee River, in 1900. Mr. C. W. Gilmore, of the U. S. National Museum, tells the writer that he saw a mastodon tooth which had been found in a swamp 2 miles southwest of Howell. Alexander Winchell, in 1864 (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XXXVIII, p. 224), reported mastodon remains from Green Oak, in Livingston County. No details were furnished. Most of this county is occupied by the Charlotte moraine system, formed by the ice-lobe which extended out from Saginaw Bay.

4. Bellevue, Eaton County.—The writer has learned from Mr. N. A. Wood, of the University of Michigan, that mastodon remains had been described from near Bellevue by Mr. E. A. Foote, in the third volume of the Report of the Pioneer Society of Michigan, on pages 402–403. The animal was found on the farm of Mr. Charles Cummings. It was a large one, the femur having a length of 3 feet 10 inches and one tusk was over 12 feet in length. Four teeth belonged to the upper jaw. The remains must have been found before 1879.

Bellevue is situated on the Kalamazoo River, which here traverses the Kalamazoo moraine. As in other cases in the central regions of the State, mastodons may have lived at a rather early stage after the Wisconsin ice began to withdraw; but they may have kept farther from the glacial front.

5. Olivet, Eaton County.—Dr. A. C. Lane (Ann. Rept. Board of Geol. Surv. Michigan for 1901, p. 253) reported the finding of mastodon bones near Olivet. A letter from Professor Samuel Rittenhouse, of Olivet College, gives the information that many of the bones of the skeleton had been secured. These were exhumed from a marsh on the northwest quarter of section 11, township 1 north, range 5 west. Following Leverett and Taylor’s map, the locality seems to be on an esker through which flows Battle Creek. The country in this region is covered by the Kalamazoo morainic system of the Saginaw lobe. The mastodon must have been buried after the ice receded from that moraine.

6. Stanton, Montcalm County.—Mr. N. A. Wood, preparator in the University of Michigan, informed the writer that Mr. L. C. Hodges, of Stanton, in 1911 found some mastodon teeth. Nothing more is known about these remains. Stanton is situated between the West Branch morainic system and the Charlotte system.

7. Buchanan, Berrien County.—Mr. William Hillis Smith, of Niles, Michigan, informed the writer that many remains of mastodons were found in a large ditch made to drain the Bakerstown marsh. This ditch began south and west of Buchanan and emptied into Lake Michigan. It was 16 feet wide and 8 to 10 feet deep. In the course of the work bones and teeth were frequently thrown out by the steam shovel, especially bones of mastodons. One skull was badly crushed, but was repaired by Mr. E. H. Crane, of Kalamazoo, and sold to the Ward Establishment, of Rochester, New York. Exact statements as to localities are wanting, but the ditch was evidently located on and within the Valparaiso moraine. It is this moraine which runs around the southern end of Lake Michigan and separates the St. Lawrence drainage from that of the Mississippi; east of the lake it extends far north into Michigan. Naturally, this moraine was formed before the withdrawal of the Lake Michigan lobe of the Wisconsin glacier into that lake, and the mastodons might have lived, died, and been buried there at any time after the exposure of the moraine and the development of climatal conditions that permitted their existence.

Mr. Hillis Smith stated that a tooth of an elephant had been thrown out in making the ditch above mentioned. This tooth was in the possession of Mr. E. H. Crane, of Kalamazoo. The species is not known.

The mastodons referred to above were mentioned by Lane in his report of 1901, page 253. He also called attention to a list of the mollusks found in the muck beneath one of the mastodons, prepared by Bryant Walker (Nautilus, vol. XI, 1898, p. 121), in which 36 species were named.

8. Eau Claire, Berrien County.—In the Joint Documents of the House of Representatives of Michigan, session 1841, page 559, Bela Hubbard stated that remains of a mastodon had been found on Paw Paw Creek, Berrien County. Lane (Rep. Geol. Surv. Michigan for 1901, p. 252) stated that there are in the Agricultural College at East Lansing, 6 teeth and half of a lower jaw, found near Eau Claire, and which may be the remains referred to by Hubbard. This appears, however, to be an error. On these teeth are the label: “Found at Eau Claire, Berrien Co., Mich. Found beneath several feet of muck while digging a ditch. B. L. Comstock, Aug. 17, 1896.” The teeth are extraordinarily large; M³ right is 222 mm. long.

The exact places where the remains mentioned were found have not been recorded. For an account of the small glacial lakes which occupied the depressions that existed between the Valparaiso moraine and the shore of Lake Michigan while the latter was yet filled with ice, see Leverett and Taylor’s Monograph No. LIII, pages 225–227. In the deposits of these lakes, but probably long after the glacial ice had retired, were buried the bones of the mastodon and other animals.

From Mr. N. A. Wood, of the University of Michigan, the information has been received that a part of a skull of a mastodon was found in making a public ditch about 2 or 3 miles south of Barada.

25. Galien, Berrien County.—In 1885 (Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. V, p. 133), I. A. Lapham reported the discovery of the right ramus of the lower jaw of a mastodon at Terre Coupée. This place has disappeared from the maps; but it is said to have been situated on the railroad, 11 miles west of Niles, not far east of Galien. The jaw was found by Mr. A. H. Taylor, at a depth of 6 feet. It was peculiar in having a supernumerary molar, a seventh. The jaw was again described by Dr. J. C. Warren in 1855 (Amer. Jour. Sci. (2), vol. XIX, pp. 348–353).

9. Dorr, Allegan County.—A. C. Lane (Rep. Geol. Surv. Michigan for 1901, p. 253) stated that Frank Fleser and others had secured a jawbone of mastodon and several teeth. The place is stated to be 4 miles west of Dorr, probably in the valley of Rabbit River, where it cuts through the Valparaiso moraine.

10. Cannonsburg, Kent County.—In the Kent Scientific Museum at Grand Rapids is a lower left last molar, labeled as having been found at Cannonsburg, by Henry Detmer. The exact locality of the place where the tooth was found is unknown to the writer. The tooth is only slightly worn and is of a white color. Cannonsburg is on a great expansion of what Leverett and Taylor call the Charlotte morainic system, a system produced by the Saginaw lobe of the Wisconsin glacier. Being one of the more distant moraines of the Saginaw lobe, it was one of the earliest to be freed from ice and to offer itself to animal occupancy; but it may not have been invaded by mastodons until the glacial wall had moved much farther away.

11. Moorland, Muskegon County.—In the Kent Scientific Museum at Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a mounted mastodon, the bones of which, except the limbs, belong to a specimen found about 1905 in a swamp north of Moorland. The exact locality, as given by Mr. C. L. McKay, the finder, is the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter, section 16, township 10 north, range 14 west. The skull and the tusks are in good condition. Beneath the skeleton was found the skull which was made the type of Boötherium sargenti Gidley.

The Moorland swamp forms part of a great plain about 25 miles wide lying between the “Lake border morainic system” (Leverett and Taylor, p. 222) and the present eastern shore of Lake Michigan. This plain appears to have been occupied by either ice or the waters of old glacial lakes until well near the close of the Wisconsin stage. The animal must have been one of the latest of his tribe to inhabit the State of Michigan. It may have lived long after the time of the musk-ox on whose skull the mastodon’s pelvis was lying.

12. Williams Township, Bay County.—In the annual reports of the Geological Survey of Michigan (1901, p. 253; 1905, p. 354), the discovery of the skeleton of a mastodon in Bay County was announced. It had been found in a depression called a pot-hole. The locality more accurately given is in the southwest corner of section 3, township 14 north, range 3 east. There was a fragment of a tusk 8.75 feet long and but little curved, a femur and its socket 9.5 inches across, one vertebra, and one tooth. These were found 3 or 4 feet from the surface. The remains were sent to Ypsilanti. An examination of Leverett and Taylor’s plate XVII (Monograph LIII) indicates that the mastodon could not probably have lived there until after the time of Lake Warren. At that time the ice-sheet occupied most of Lake Huron and a part of Saginaw Bay, but the climate of that region was probably, for a long time after the passing of Lake Warren, too raw and cold to please the mastodon, so that it was long afterward that this individual left his skeleton in the boggy hole.

13. Near Saginaw, Saginaw County.—Dr. A. C. Lane has reported (Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Michigan for 1901, p. 252) that he had found in the possession of farmers in Tittabawassee Township, Saginaw County, parts of a tusk, said to have come from a ditch near the course of the Parker drain, about 0.25 mile north of the south line of section 20, township 13 north, range 3 east, according to Mr. D. E. Williamson, of Saginaw. Dr. Lane also reported remains of a mastodon, including the lower jaw, found in digging a tile ditch on the “Willis farm.”

14. See page 85.

15. Saginaw County.—In October 1910, Mr. Ralph McQuiston sent to the writer photographs of three mastodon teeth found on a farm about 8 miles east of north of Elsie, Clinton County. He has since given this locality as being in the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of section 4, township 9 north, range 1 east. According to Leverett and Taylor’s glacial map of Michigan, this would be about 6 miles within the old Lake Warren beach-line and in sandy deposits laid down in water. The teeth were found at a depth of 3 feet. It may be that the animal died at that spot after the waters of Lake Warren had retired. If so, it would be interesting to determine the origin of the materials which covered the mastodon. On the other hand, the mastodon remains were possibly deposited there after the withdrawal of Lake Wayne and that the overlying materials were laid down by the water of Lake Warren, for this lake appears to have stood at a higher level than its predecessor. If the latter supposition is correct, mastodons could live not far away from the glacial front.

Further correspondence with Mr. McQuiston makes it appear improbable that the overlying materials were deposited by lake waters. Professor Leverett suggests that the animal had died in an old swale and had afterwards been buried under fine material washed in from the somewhat higher ground in the neighborhood. In that case the mastodon may have lived at any time after the lake waters had retired from the locality.

14. Alma, Gratiot County.—In Alma College, at Alma, Gratiot County, are some remains of a mastodon, found about 6.5 miles southeast of Alma, on the farm of Mr. Albert Smith. These remains were exhumed under the direction of Professor H. M. MacCurdy, of Alma College (Mich. Acad. Sci., Rep. XXI, p. 119). Various parts of the skull are preserved, one part showing beautifully the air-cells; also a fragment of a tooth, axis, three dorsal vertebræ, a few ribs, and a part of the pelvis. From Mr. Albert Smith it is learned that the remains were found on the southwest quarter of section 17, township 11 north, range 2 west. This, following Leverett and Taylor’s map, would be on the Owosso moraine, which here runs north from Ithaca, Gratiot County. A ditch was being dug through a peat-bog and the bones were met with at a depth of 4 feet or less from the surface. Professor MacCurdy wrote that the bones were lying on a bed of gravelly sand and were covered by a thin layer of mixed sand and vegetation, while over this was about 3 or 4 feet of well-decayed peat. The locality is about 2 miles from the shore-line of the glacial Lake Maumee, as mapped by Leverett and Taylor.

In the collection at Alma College is a left ramus of the jaw of a mastodon, which contains the second and the third true molars and the socket for the first molar. This jaw is reported to have been found on the William Pitt farm, about 7 miles from Alma and in Seville Township. The exact locality is given the writer by Professor MacCurdy as being in the south half of the northeast quarter of section 22, township 12 north, range 4 west. Professor C. A. Davis contributed for the writer the information that these bones were discovered in constructing ditches from 18 inches to probably 3 feet in depth.

In the Alma College collections are some mastodon remains, including three fine upper teeth, which were found in the southeast part of the village of Alma. The locality is described as being in the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section 3, township 11 north, range 3 west. Professor Charles A. Davis, deceased, formerly professor at Alma College, later connected with the Bureau of Mines at Washington, D. C., as peat expert, informed the writer that many years ago he exhumed parts of two skeletons of mastodons. Part of the bones lay in a small deposit of marl and were well preserved; the others lay on the edge of the marl-bed and above it and were not so well preserved. It appears that the locality had been covered permanently with water in which peat was growing. Associated with the bones in the marl were the fruits of the tamarack (Larix laricina) and of the black spruce (Picea mariana). These trees are growing there to-day, and extend far north into British America; hence, when those mastodons were living in the region about Alma the climate may have been as warm as it is to-day or much cooler.

Professor C. A. Davis informed the writer that a large number of mastodon bones were found about 1885 by a farmer who lived half a mile west of Riverdale. This was in Seville Township, No. 12 north, range 4 west, apparently in section 31. The discovery was made by the owner of the land, who found a number of teeth of a mastodon attached to the roots of a small elm tree which he pulled out of a swale on his farm. The bones were not more than 18 inches below the surface. Professor Davis regarded it as remarkable that remains of the mastodon should be so near the surface in ponds and swales where peat is growing.

16. Bancroft, Shiawassee County.—Dr. A. C. Lane (7th Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Michigan, 1905, p. 553) reported that some ribs, tusks, teeth, and many bones of a mastodon had been found near Bancroft, at a depth of 4 feet, in marl, above which were muck, marl, and sand. Lane gives the locality as being on the line between sections 36 and 25, township 6 north, range 5 east, but this would be about 12 miles east of Bancroft. The range is probably 3 east. The locality appears to be on the Fowler moraine.

17. Venice, Shiawassee County.—In the agricultural school at East Lansing is a lower right hindermost molar, catalog No. 3392, which is said to have been found at Venice by Mr. Hiram Johnson. There are also parts of one or two tusks from the same place, probably of mastodon. Venice is just north of the Owosso moraine, and the mastodon must have lived there at a rather late time in the Wisconsin stage. A letter from Mr. Fayette Johnson, of Washington, D. C., son of Mr. Hiram Johnson, informs the writer that he saw the bones taken up about the year 1884. The place was about the center of section 21, township 7 north, range 4 east. This would be apparently on the Owosso moraine.

18. Fenton, Genesee County.—Alexander Winchell (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XXXVIII, 1864, p. 224) reported mastodon remains from this place. No details were given. Fenton is located on the Portland moraine, one of those built up by the Saginaw lobe.

19. Davison, Genesee County.—In the museum of the Michigan Agricultural School, at East Lansing, Michigan, is a large left femur, found near Davison, Genesee County. It was presented by Mr. A. B. Cullen, but no more exact information was furnished. A comparison of this femur with those of the mastodon and of a specimen of E. primigenius from Siberia indicates that the bone belonged to the American mastodon. The length is 40.5 inches. Davison is situated on the border of an old lake which lay along the front of the ice which built up St. Johns moraine (Taylor, Monogr. LIII, p. 241). At this stage the earliest of the glacial lakes, Lake Maumee, had not yet come into existence; but it must have been long after this time that the mastodon lived in the region about Davison.

20. Utica, Macomb County.—In 1864, Alexander Winchell (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XXXVIII, p. 224) reported mastodon remains from near this town. A mention of this discovery is given in volume XVII, page 425, of the “Collections and Researches made by the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society,” by George H. Cannon. It is here stated that remains had been unearthed on the farm of Hon. P. K. Leech, and that specimens of the jawbone and several teeth were in the cabinet of Hon. W. W. Andrus. A letter to the present writer from Mr. A. F. Leech, son of Mr. P. K. Leech, states that the remains had been found on the east half of the northeast quarter of section 31, township 3 north, range 12 east, in a swale which runs across the land described. These teeth and bones were destroyed in a fire many years ago. According to Leverett and Taylor’s Glacial Map of the Southern Peninsula of Michigan, the locality where these remains were discovered is near the outer border of the glacial Lake Maumee, at a point where there was a delta. This delta is mentioned by Leverett and Taylor (Monogr. LIII, U. S. Geol. Surv., p. 383). It is where Clinton River entered old Lake Maumee. It is evident that the animal did not live before the time of this lake; it probably existed long after this time, when the climate had much moderated.

21. Plymouth, Wayne County.—Alexander Winchell (First Bienn. Rep. State Geologist, 1861, p. 132) stated that a Mr. Shattuck had exhumed nearly an entire set of teeth of a mastodon, with a part of a tusk 7 feet in length. Winchell saw five of the teeth; the other bones appear to have been destroyed. The exact location of this place is not known, but Plymouth is within the border of the glacial Lake Maumee; and the existence of the mastodon was possible only well toward the close of the Wisconsin stage.

22. Wyandotte, Wayne County.—In the collection of the University of Michigan are many bones, including jaws with teeth, of a mastodon found in Monguegon Township, about 6 miles southwest of Wyandotte and about 2 miles northwest of Sibley. The locality more accurately given is the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 12, township 4 south, range 10 east. This was on the farm of Mr. James H. Vreeland. A county ditch was being made to drain what is known as the Big Marsh. As reported to the writer by Mr. R. A. Smith, Assistant State Geologist of Michigan, on a very coarse limestone gravel are 30 inches of blue clay and over this about 30 inches of muck. The bones were mostly in the blue clay; those lying in the muck were much decayed. Some teeth and an atlas are in the possession of Mr. Vreeland.

According to Leverett and Taylor’s map, this mastodon was buried within the borders of glacial Lake Lundy, just outside of that of Lake Rouge, a contemporary of Lake Algonquin. On page 442 of Leverett and Taylor’s monograph it is stated that the altitude of the beach of Rouge Lake is 589 feet. On the map just referred to the 600–foot contour-line runs at a considerable distance west of the locality of the mastodon find. The latter appears, then, to have been somewhere between the altitude of 589 and 600 feet above sea-level, without considering the depth the skeleton may have lain below the surface. The altitude of Lake Erie is 573 feet. It is evident that the lake had attained nearly, if not quite, its present level when this mastodon lived.

Dr. E. C. Case, who superintended the excavation of this specimen, informed the writer that the bones were found 4 feet from the surface.

23. See page 88.

24. Petersburg, Monroe County.—Alexander Winchell (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. XXXVIII, 1864, p. 224) reported mastodon remains from this place. The town is in township 7 south, range 6 east. According to Leverett and Taylor’s map, Petersburg is within the beach which marks the old glacial Lake Warren. Probably, therefore, this mastodon lived after the retirement of this lake, unless it had lived during the time of Lake Wayne and been covered over by the deposits of Lake Warren when the waters of the latter made their advance on the land. The time of the mastodon was more probably after both lakes had ceased to exist.

23. Saline, Washtenaw County.—Mr. N. A. Wood, of the University of Michigan, informed the writer that he had seen some mastodon remains which had been found here in 1880. No exact statements were given regarding the place. Saline is very close to the beach of old Lake Maumee, where this beach is crossed by Saline River and on the Defiance moraine.

25. See page 83.

26. Seven miles southeast of Ypsilanti, Washtenaw County.—In 1908 (Folio 155, U. S. Geol. Surv., p. 9), Russell and Leverett stated that remains of a mastodon had been found a few years previously on the farm of Albert Darling, about 7 miles southeast of Ypsilanti, where laborers were digging a ditch across a swampy field. The lower jaw with molar teeth in place, the left tusk, teeth of the upper jaw, portions of the cranium, some vertebræ and ribs, and some of the larger bones of the limbs were found. With considerable restoration these parts were mounted and placed in the museum of Michigan University. The locality must be not far away from Huron River and within the beach of old Arkona Lake, a predecessor of the present Lake Erie.

27. See page 81.