Читать книгу The Pleistocene of North America and its vertebrated animals - Oliver Perry Hay - Страница 71

8. Princeton, Gibson County.—In 1910, three teeth of a mastodon were found in this village, at a depth of 6 feet, in a sewer which was being constructed in West Chestnut street. This region is covered by Illinoian drift. According to Leverett’s map (Monogr. LIII, 1914), Princeton is situated on Illinoian ground moraine covered by loess. Dr. E. W. Shaw, of the U. S. Geological Survey, who is familiar with the region in question, informs the writer that these teeth were almost certainly found in Iowan loess, deposited at some time between the Illinoian and the Wisconsin glacial stages.

52. Vincennes, Knox County.—At the State University of Colorado, at Boulder, there is an atlas of a mastodon which was taken there by Professor M. M. Ellis, formerly of Vincennes, who stated that this, with other bones, had been found at Vincennes, associated with a skull of a fossil bison.

9. Knox or Gibson County.—In Blainville’s “Ostéographie des Mammifères,” page 340, it was stated that the lower jaw of a mastodon had been found at some place between Vincennes and New Harmony. The locality would be in either Knox or Gibson County. The valley of the Wabash in all this region is filled with outwash from the Wisconsin glacier, and most probably the animal represented lived during the Wisconsin stage; but our lack of knowledge of the conditions in which the jaw was found forbids any assumption of certainty in our conclusion.

10. Parke County.—In the Forty-first Annual Report of the State Museum of New York it is reported that there was received, about 1888, the tooth of a mastodon, found in this county, at the junction of Raccoon and Little Raccoon Creeks. These creeks unite on section 23 of township 14 north, range 8 west. The political name of the township is Florida. The region is covered by Illinoian drift; hence the tooth is quite certainly more recent than that epoch. The valleys of the creeks named are occupied by outwash from Wisconsin drift, and probably the teeth found lodgment there during the Wisconsin stage.

11. Brookville, Franklin County.—The writer has given an account of the remains of mastodons found near Brookville (36th Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Indiana, 1912, p. 704). The information is derived from a report by Dr. Rufus Haymond, made in the First Annual Report, 1869, page 199. Two of these were found 8 or 9 feet below the surface, in the gravel of the upper terrace, along Whitewater River. One was discovered about half a mile below Brookville, the other about 3.5 miles below the village. According to Mr. A. E. Taylor’s account of this region (34th Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Indiana), the terrace in which the mastodon bones were buried is 100 feet above the present bed of Whitewater River. As Haymond speaks of skeletons being found at these localities, it is probable that something more than isolated teeth or bones were buried there. If so, the bones were in their original place of interment, and since that interment the terrace was built up higher by about 8 feet. According to Leverett (Monogr. LIII, p. 118), these terraces were made from the outwash of the Wisconsin glacier while it was forming the moraines which cross Wayne and the southern part of Randolph Counties. If this is true, these mastodons lived shortly after the culmination of the Wisconsin stage. This interpretation would imply that mastodons could live in very close proximity to the glacial front. However, not too much importance must be attached to this case, for it is possible that the animals were not correctly identified.

According to Haymond, another skeleton was found about 3.5 miles northeast of Brookville, in a piece of marshy ground which the owner was ditching. This discovery must have been made either on the outer (Hartwell) moraine of the Wisconsin glacier or along East Honnas Creek, where it breaks through the moraine. In either case, the animal must have been buried there after the retirement of the ice from that moraine.

12. Dearborn County.—In 1872 (3d and 4th Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Indiana, p. 402), Professor R. B. Warder mentioned briefly that some remains of mastodon had been met with in this county. A part of a large pelvis was found at a salt spring on Tanner’s Creek, below Guilford. This may have belonged to either a mastodon or an elephant. A mastodon’s tooth is said to have been found on high ground on George Randall’s farm, 5 miles west of southwest of Aurora, lying on a stratum of blue clay 8 or 9 feet below the surface. This region is occupied by Illinoian drift and the mastodon probably lived there at some time after the Illinoian stage and before the Wisconsin. However, we can not be certain that the animal was not a mammoth, for no description was given of the tooth and it has almost certainly been destroyed.

According to L. C. Ward’s report on the soils of Dearborn County (32d Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Indiana, p. 232), this immediate region is occupied by what he calls limestone upland soil, which has resulted from the decay of Silurian limestones and shales. Nothing is said about Illinoian drift there. Nevertheless, by some means, this proboscidean was buried there during the Pleistocene period.

Warder mentioned other remains of proboscideans reported from Ohio County, adjoining Dearborn on the south, a piece of a tusk found near Patriot, a tusk on Laughery Creek above Hartford, and a tooth at Rising Sun, in the river bank; but these may have belonged to elephants. To an elephant may have belonged the tusks which Warder reported as having been found in the river bottom 5 miles below Vevay, in Switzerland County.

54. Lawrenceburg, Dearborn County.—Mr. M. G. Mock, of Houston, Texas, formerly of Muncie, Indiana, a careful collector of mastodon and elephant teeth, in a letter informed the writer that in August 1887 a large mastodon tooth was found near Lawrenceburg, but the exact locality was not given.

20. Charleston, Clark County.—In the Fifth Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Indiana, 1874, page 176, Mr. William W. Borden reported the discovery of a skeleton of a mastodon on tract 55 of the “Illinois Grant,” about 2 miles southwest of Charleston Landing and about the same distance from the Ohio River. A part of the bones was sent to the old Louisville Museum; the others were, in 1874, in the possession of Mr. J. Coons, one of the finders. Probably the bones have long been lost or destroyed. According to Borden, they were found in a sand-bank. This region is occupied by Illinoian drift.

According to R. W. Ellis’s soil survey of this region (32d Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Indiana, p. 245, map), this area is occupied by what is called New Washington clay loam. This is regarded as the residual soil of the disintegrated limestone of the Jeffersonville and Niagara formations. Nothing is said about any glacial drift here, but the sand of the sand-pit mentioned must have been deposited during the Pleistocene.