FOSSILS OF THE GEAVEL SERIES: THE ELEPHANT. 



255 



of the tail was found. By actual measurement, the length of the vertebral 

 column was twenty feet. The great bones and joints of the fore and hind 

 legs lay on either side of the column in their appropriate places, but in dis- 

 orderly array. The skull rested apparently upon its face, the lower jaw upper- 

 most 5 it was about four feet in length and two in width. From the upper 

 jaw sprang two massive, curved, black tusks, diverging as they lay, until the 

 tips were four or five feet asunder. Their size and beauty induced Mr. 

 Bailey [the miner by whom the skeletons were discovered] to spend two 

 days of labor in the attempt to disengage the right-hand one for preser- 

 vation. With great care and patience he removed the cement and soil from 

 above and around it, until it rested only on a thin narrow ridge of clay curv- 

 ing from base to point • but, on applying a slight degree of force, it crumbled 

 at once to fragments. Its diameter at the base was six inches, and it retained 

 this size with great uniformity for four feet ; thence it tapered to the point, 

 two feet two inches farther, making its entire length six feet two inches. Its 

 surface was hard, smooth, black enamel. This color penetrated one fourth 

 of an inch in depth. It does not appear to have been colored by any ingre- 



* 



dient in the soil. The mass of the interior was white. All the bones crum- 

 bled rapidly on exposure/' 



A mile below the locality where the above-mentioned elephant was found, 

 a large quantity of bones were discovered by Mr. Bailey in the course of his 

 mining operations. The "cement" — clay and sand — was there twenty-two 

 feet thick, and the remains were mostly found in a stratum about two feet 

 above the granite bed-rock. Here, as Mr. Winchell remarks, hundreds of 

 decaying bones, as large as those of the elephant, were found lying together 

 in great confusion, with some bones of smaller animals among thein. # 



The most important point regarding the occurrence of the fossil remains 



of the elephant in the mining region of the Sierra is, that they have not thu 



s 



far been found as low down 



geologically speaking 



as those of the mas- 



todon. No instance has as yet reached the writer's notice of their occurrence 

 under the basaltic capping of the gravel. And, in general, the appearance 

 of the various specimens seen in the possession of the miners, or collected 

 together in museums and saloons,! was never that of partial fossilization, such 



* It is much to be regretted that it was impossible for any member of the Geological Survey to visit 

 this locality at the time these explorations were going on. 



t " Saloons," i. e., places where whiskey is dispensed, are excellent places to see what of interest in the 

 way of fossils has been found in their respective neighborhoods. A Luge portion of the most interesting 

 specimens used to find their way to saloons, where they were carefully preserved and highly valued. 



I 



