322 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY 



though associated with those known to be extinct, such as mastodon, mega- 

 therium, hipparion, etc., need not necessarily be referred to extinct races 

 also ; since their remains cannot be distinguished from the bones and teeth 

 of the living species. 



Of the mollusca from the same beds, about ninety-five per cent, are, to my 

 mind, identically the same with species now living on the coast of South 

 Carolina. Two species of these shells, though extinct, or not in existence 

 here, are now living in numbers on the coast of Florida and the northern 

 shores of the Gulf of Mexico ; and two have no living representatives that 

 we can discover. 



The question, therefore, naturally suggests itself Are the living horses, 

 dogs, hogs, raccoons, opossums, deer, elk, tapirs, beavers, etc., and the one 

 hundred and fifty living shells of the coast, the descendants of the animals 

 whose remains we find fossil in the above-named beds? 



It has been just remarked that about ninety -five per cent., or nearly all of 

 the one hundred and fifty shells of molluscous animals from these beds, arc 

 specifically identical with the recent or living species of the coast, two are 

 found only at the south of this, and two are extinct. Of the vertebrates 

 from the same bed, the tapir, peccary, raccoon, opossum, deer, musk-rat, 

 rabbit, beaver, and elk, have still their living representatives, generically, if 

 not specifically; and even of the identity of species there seems to be no 

 doubt, as no anatomical differences can be discerned. Two of these species, 

 like the mollusca just alluded to, no longer live in South Carolina; the tapir 

 and peccary are only found in South America and Mexico ; the musk-rat, 

 elk, and beaver, though extinct on the Atlantic coast, are still living in the 

 interior of the country. And though it has been acknowledged that the 

 mastodon, megatherium, elephant, glyptodon, and two species of Equine 

 genera, etc., are entirely extinct, yet the discoveries made of the remains 

 even of some of these, would indicate that they still existed at a period so 

 recent, that, in the language of Prof. Leidy, " it is probable the red man 

 witnessed their declining existence." 



The peccary, or Mexican hog, an animal common in Mexico, is not indi- 

 genous to the Atlantic United States ; but his bones have been found asso- 

 ciated with human remains in caves used as cemeteries by the Aborigines. 

 "A tomb in the city of Mexico," according to Clavigero ( ?), "was found to 

 contain the bones of an entire mammoth, the sepulchre appearing to have 

 been formed expressly for their reception." And " Mr. Latrobe relates that, 

 during the prosecution of some excavations near the city of Tezcuco, one 

 of the ancient roads or causeways was discovered, and on one side, only 

 three feet below the surface, in what may have been the ditch of the road, 

 there lay the entire skeleton of a mastodon. It bore every appearance of 

 having been coeval with the period when the road was used." 



Again I extract from Prof. Leidy 's letter: 



" The early existence of the genera to which our domestic animals belong, 

 has been adduced as presumptive evidence of the advent of man at a more 

 remote period than is usually assigned. It must be remembered, however, 

 even at the present time, that of some of these genera only a few species are 

 domesticated; thus of the existing six species of Eqnus (horse) only two 

 have ever been freely brought under the dominion of man. 



" The horse did not exist in America at the time of its discovery by Euro- 

 peans; but its remains, consisting chiefly of molar teeth, have now been 

 so frequently found in association with those of extinct animals, that it is 



