NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 



179 



of the bones and teeth of the animal still remaining in the sands which under- 

 lie the peat-bed. Accordingly, with a small party of gentlemen, we visited the 

 Doctor, and succeeded not only in obtaining several other teeth and bones ot 

 this animal, but nearly one entire tusk, and immediately along side of the tusk 

 discovered the fragment of pottery which I hold in my hand, and which is simi- 

 lar to that manufactured at the present time by the American Indians. The 

 depth of the excavation was about three feet below the surface ; bones of the 

 deer and two teeth of a horse were also found. 



This is not a drift-bed, but a deposite of the peat and sands of the post-plio- 

 cene formation. The marine beds with their characteristic shells lie immedi- 

 ately beneath, and is exposed on the high land which surrounds the swamp. 

 If we take the one hundred and fifty species of mollusca, whose shells are so 

 beautifully preserved in these beds, and place the entire groupalong side of a 

 similar collection of the shells of the recent species living upon the coast, we 

 will observe that they are identically the same in form, character and every 

 other respect, except the following. There are among the fossils two shells whose 

 analogues are not now living upon the sea coast of Carolina, but are common 

 in the gulf of Mexico, and West Indian seas. Slrombus pugilis, abundant on 

 the coast of Florida and Cuba, is a fossil of the post-pliocene ; and Gnathodon 

 cuneatum, now living in the estuaries near Mobile, and along the northern 

 coast of the Gulf is found fossil at a depth of eighteen or twenty feet under 

 the city of Charleston, and in such numbers that cart-loads may be obtained 

 from a single locality. 



Again, we find two more species that are now extinct, or rather unknown to 

 me in a recent state, one of which I have lately figured and described as Caro- 

 lina Tuomeyii, after my late friend and colleague Prof. Tuomey; the other is Tel- 

 ledora lunulata, Adams, a shell described as recent, from Carolina, but in fact 

 a fossil in the post-pliocene and extinct. 



Now let us compare this group of remains of the vertebrata with a similar 

 group of living animals. Among the former we find teeth of the deer, raccoon, 

 opossum and others well known to be living at the present time in South Caro- 

 lina ; but like the invertebrata we find two or three species which are no longer 

 existing north of Mexico and South America the peccary, the capybara and the 

 tapir. Again, there are remains of the musk-rat and beaver, but these two 

 animals are extinct in the low country of South Carolina; the beaver has in- 

 deed almost been extirpated to the east of the Mississippi river, and the musk- 

 rat is confined to a region above the falls of the rivers of this State. 



The mastodon, the megatherium, the mylodon and perhaps one or two others, 

 are extinct. 



That we may the better appreciate the interesting analogy existing between 

 these two groups as regards the living and extinct species, we will place them 

 in a tubular form, thus : 



1859.] 



* Strombus pugilis and Gnaihodon cuneatum. 



t Mya arenaria, Pandora trilineata. 



X Cavolina Tuomeyi and Telledora lunulata. 



Tapir, Peccary and Capybara. 



II Elk, Beaver, Musk-rat. 



II Mastodon, Elephant, Megatherium, Mylodon, Castoroides. 



