Читать книгу The Pleistocene of North America and its vertebrated animals - Oliver Perry Hay - Страница 73

The whole region is occupied by deposits from the Wisconsin glacial sheet.

16. Bowers, Montgomery County.—Professor Donaldson Bodine of Wabash College, has informed the writer that about 1885 some remains of a mastodon were unearthed on the farm of Milton N. Waugh, near Bowers. The exact locality is said to be in section 12, township 20 north, range 3 west. This must be close to a stream named on the map Potato Creek. This lies north of the Bloomington morainic system or on its northern edge. The epoch of the animal is not earlier than Wisconsin.

According to Jones and Orahood’s soil survey of this county (37th Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Indiana, p. 149), the glacial drift is almost everywhere overlain by loess, varying in thickness from a few inches to nearly 3 feet. This loess was deposited after the ice had retired from that region.

17. Indianapolis, Marion County.—In the State Museum at Indianapolis there is a lower right last molar labeled as having been found in Indianapolis, at Pennsylvania and Thirtieth streets, by workmen who were digging a sewer. This was probably in outwash materials brought down by Fall Creek from the northeast during the withdrawal of the Wisconsin ice from the Bloomington moraine to the one which passes through Union City and Muncie, called the Union City moraine.

18. Anderson, Madison County.—In the Indianapolis Star of July 30, 1911, is an account of the finding of jawbones, with teeth, of a mastodon. The account was accompanied by reproductions of photographs, which make the identification certain. The remains were found on the farm of Louis Webb, but the exact location was not indicated. The animal certainly lived after the culmination of the Wisconsin stage.

Leverett (Monogr. U. S. Geol. Surv. LIII, p. 99) states that in parts of central Indiana the Wisconsin drift may be relatively thin, as little as from 15 to 20 feet. In western Tipton and southern Clinton Counties a buried soil about 20 feet below the surface seems to represent the land surface previous to the Wisconsin invasion. In southern Madison County a black mucky soil, carrying pieces of wood large enough to be called logs, underlies the till at from 15 to 40 feet. Such a soil would be the product of the interval between the Illinoian glacial stage and the Wisconsin, probably either Sangamon or Peorian. In such deposits there might be found vertebrate remains, possibly even of horses.

19. Fairmount Township, Grant County.—In 1883, A. J. Phinney, M. D., in describing the geology of Grant County (13th Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Indiana, p. 143), reported that some years previously the tooth of a mastodon was found in one of the marshes south of the lake in Fairmount Township, number 23 north, range 8 east. In another part of the report it is stated that the lake was in section 14. It covered at the time of writing about 10 acres, but had formerly covered about 30 acres. The drainage is now north into the Mississinawa River; but, before the Wisconsin ice had withdrawn to where the Mississinawa moraine now is, the drainage was toward the south into White River. At some time after the retirement of the ice from this region it became occupied by mastodons, elephants, giant beavers, and doubtless many other species of animals.

For 20 see page 91.

21. Muncie, Delaware County.—A. J. Phinney, in 1882 (11th Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Indiana, p. 131), reported that a mastodon tooth was found 4.5 miles west of Muncie, on the farm of Edward McKinley. No details as to depth or kind of soil were given. The tooth is said to have measured 4 by 5.5 inches, with a depth of 7 inches. Unless the roots were present and large it seems not unlikely that the tooth was that of an elephant. Phinney did not say that he saw the tooth. He reported other supposed mastodon remains which had been found in this county, but there is no assurance that they were correctly identified. Whatever proboscideans they were, they lived after the Wisconsin ice had retreated from that region.

Mr. M. G. Mock, of Houston, Texas, formerly of Muncie, Indiana, has been interested in making collections of fossils and curiosities. He has kept a note-book of his finds and has illustrated it with sketches. He has a lower right last mastodon molar which was found near Muncie. It is 8.5 inches long, and has 4 crests and 5 roots.

He reports having seen a mastodon tooth with 3 crests, which was found June 1887, about 1.75 miles east of Muncie, at the mouth of Hog Creek.

Two teeth, of which Mr. Mock still owns one, were found August 8, 1894, 2.5 miles south of Muncie, in a ditch near Buck Creek, on the farm owned by Oliver McConnell.

53. Royerton, Delaware County.—Mr. M. G. Mock, above referred to, showed the writer a drawing of a mastodon tooth which was found May 24, 1890, near Royerton, 6 miles north of Muncie. With this were two other teeth; one 7 inches long and weighed nearly 4 pounds. These were discovered in excavating tile clay at a depth of about 3.5 feet.

22. Henry County.—In the collection of Princeton University are two lower true molars, apparently the first of each side. The length of each is 95 mm. They are labeled as having come from Henry County, Indiana, but there is nothing to indicate from what part of the county.

23. Losantville, Randolph County.—Losantville is, according to Leverett (Monogr. U. S. Geol. Surv. LIII, plate VI), on the Bloomington moraine of the Wisconsin. As indicated on the map, the drift is covered with silt formed in local ice-border pools. Hence the mastodon in question left his bones in a depression on the top of the Wisconsin drift-sheet, and later they were covered by a deposit of peat.

In Nautilus, volume IV, page 131, Elwood Pleas, of Dunreith, Indiana, gave a list of six species of mollusks found associated with the mastodon. All are yet living.

Dr. A. J. Phinney (Twelfth Ann. Rep. Ind. Geol. Surv., p. 181) stated that mastodon bones had been met in this county, but no details were furnished.

24. Dalton, Wayne County.—In the Earlham College collection there is a lower jaw found in Nettle Creek, near Dalton. It contains the last two molars. The last one has five crests and a talon. The front of the symphysis is rough, but there are no alveoles for tusks. Dalton is in the northwestern corner of the county and on the southern border of the Shelbyville moraine, where this joins the Bloomington moraine.

25. Jacksonburg, Wayne County.—Dr. John T. Plummer (Amer. Jour. Sci., ser. I, vol. XLIV, 1843, p. 302) stated that he had obtained near Jacksonburg, 18 miles west of Richmond, a tooth. It had four cross-ridges and was so well preserved that a dentist attempted to make artificial human teeth from it. According to Leverett’s map, the tooth was probably on the surface of Wisconsin drift. It could not, therefore, have lived until after the Shelbyville moraine had been cleared of ice.

26. Richmond, Wayne County.—In the twelfth volume of the American Geologist, page 73, Professor Joseph Moore, then of Earlham College, stated that some sound teeth and decayed bones of a mastodon had been found 2 miles east of Richmond, in scooping out a fish-pond. A label on a lower last molar states that the remains were found on the Floyd farm. With them were found a fragment of an incisor of Castoroides. According to Leverett (Monogr. LIII, plate VI), the locality would be outside of the Bloomington moraine of the Wisconsin drift.