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THE america:n' bisons. 



89 



Maine. The late Mrs. Frederic Allen, of Gardiner, secured these teeth for 

 her cabinet, where they were seen by Sir Charles Lyell, who took with him 

 some of them to England for determination. Respecting these specimens, 

 and others contained in Mrs. Allen's cabinet, Sir Charles speaks as follows: 

 *^^At Mrs. Allen's I examined, with much interest, a collection of fossil shells 

 and Crustacea, made by Mrs. Allen, from the drift, or ' glacial ' deposits of 

 the same age as those of Portsmouth, already described. Among other 

 remains I recognized the tooth of a walrus, similar to one procured by me in 

 Martha's Vineyard, and other teeth, since determined by Professor Owen as 

 belonging to the buffalo, or American bison. These are, I believe, the first 

 examples of land quadrupeds discovered in beds of this age in the United 

 States. The accompanying shells consisted of the common mussel (If^tilus 

 eduUs)^ Saxicava rifgosa^ Mya arenariaj Peden islaiidiciis^ and species of the 

 genera Astarte^ Niicula^ etc."* 



These specimens of supposed bison's teeth having assumed a considerable 

 degree of importance, I wrote, in January, 1873, to Professor Owen, to ob- 

 tain, if possible, further information respecting them. In his reply, dated 

 Cairo, Egypt, February 6, 1873, he says: ^' I do not recall the circumstance 

 to which you refer, and no teeth of ruminants from the locality you name 

 were in the Paleeontological Department of the British Museum when the 



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state of my health obliged me to winter here. I should be unwilling to 

 accept the responsibility of any determination which I have not myself pub- 

 lished, after the care requisite for such a step." 



Upon the death of Mrs. Frederic Allen, her collection passed into the 



possession of her daughter, Mrs. Romeo Elton, now residing in Dorchester, 



■ Mass. 



history of the specimens in question, and to examine the three teeth still 

 remaining in her collection, and which were figured by Dr. A. S. Packard, Jr., 

 in his memoir on the Glacial Phenomena of Labrador and Maine, etc.f 

 There is also a specimen from the original lot of four, in the Museum of the 

 Boston Society of Natural History, presented to the Society by Dr. C- T. 

 Jackson, with a collection of Maine tertiary fossils. 



The circumstances of the finding of the teeth are fully set forth in a writ- 

 ten statement, or deposition, made at the time by the person who collected 

 the specimens. Through the kindness of Mrs. Elton, I have before me the 



+ 



* Second Visit to the United Stutes of North America, Vol. I, pp. 43, 44, 1849. 

 t Mem, Boston Soc Nat. Hist., Vol. I, plate vii, fig. 18. 





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Through Mrs. Elton's kindness I have been able to obtain the full 





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