130 ELEPHANTS 



The Mastodon (Mastodon americanus) is the oldest mem- 

 ber of the American elephant group, and to us it is also the 

 best known. It lived in the geologic age known as the Lower 

 Pleistocene, and disappeared in the Upper Pliocene, when the 

 mammoths were at their best. This species occupied prac- 

 tically the whole of the United States, oddly confining itself 

 to our country except for the broad wedge of distribution 

 that ran up from southeastern British Columbia to Lake 

 Winnipeg, and thence down to Lake Superior. Stragglers 

 wandered to Nova Scotia and Yukon Territory. 



You can recognize a molar of a Mastodon almost as far as 

 you can see it, by the four or five very high and bold saw- 

 tooth ridges that extend across its top from side to side. The 

 molar of any species of Elephas is flat on top, with very low 

 and narrow cutting plates of enamel extending across it. 



The skull, tusks and skeleton of the Mastodon are so 

 truly elephant-like that if a complete skeleton were labelled 

 "African elephant" not more than one person out of every 

 thousand would notice the error except by observing the 

 crowns of the molar teeth. It seems to be accepted as a fact 

 that the Mastodon was covered with a coat of coarse hair. 

 In size it was practically the counterpart of the Indian ele- 

 phant. The adult males of both these species may fairly be 

 put down as being 9 feet 6 inches in shoulder height; but it 

 is known that on rare occasions an exceptional giant did ex- 

 ceed those figures. Mastodon tusks vary in length from 6 

 feet up to 10 feet, the latter figure being the maximum. 



The state of New York has been quite prolific in the pro- 

 duction of Mastodons, and the bogs of Ulster and Orange 



