. FOSSILS OF THE GRAVEL SEEIES : PKOBOSCIDEANS. 



251 



parts corresponding to the fossil specimens just indicated [teeth and jaw frag- 

 ments], it is not improbable that these really belong to an extinct species." 



We come next to the most abundant and widely disseminated of all the 

 animal remains found in California, namely, those of the Proboscidean, including 

 both the mastodon and the elephant. The widespread occurrence of these 

 animals on the American continent during the later Tertiary times is a fact 

 well known to all naturalists, and the literature relating to this subject is 

 already very extensive* It will be impossible to enumerate all the localities 

 in California where the remains of the mastodon and elephant have been 

 observed ; the most that can be done will be to mention some of the most 

 important facts connected with their occurrence. 



In the first place, as to the mastodon, the remains of which animal in Cali- 

 fornia are decidedly more abundant and more widely distributed than those 

 of the elephant. On the map given in Murray's " Geographical Distribution 

 of Mammals," to illustrate the range of the fossil proboscideans during the 

 Pliocene period, the whole of North America is colored to indicate their ex- 

 istence, excepting the extreme northeast, along the coast of Labrador and 

 farther north. It would not be correct, however, for California, to extend the 

 range of either the mastodon or the elephant over the whole of the Sierra. 

 So far as known to the writer, the bones of these animals have not been 

 found high up on the mountains. Their habitat seems to have been in the 

 Coast Ranges, and along the foot-hills of the Sierra, up to an elevation little, 

 if at all, exceeding 3,000 feet. By far the larger number of the remains 

 which have come under the writer's notice have been at elevations little ex- 

 ceeding 2,000 feet ; while, as before remarked, the skeletons which have been 

 found under such circumstances as to indicate that they had not been moved 

 since the individual's death are limited to the region at the base of the foot- 

 hills. The portion of the State where mastodon remains have been found in 

 the greatest abundance is that in the vicinity of Sonora and Columbia, along 

 the limestone belt, so often alluded to in the preceding pages. Cart-loads 

 of mastodon bones, as has been repeatedly stated to the writer on good 

 authority, have been accumulated at various places between Sonora and 

 the Stanislaus River at the workings in the limestone crevices. Most of these 









have been destroyed by the inevitable fires which periodically consume the 

 mining towns, and those not burned have generally crumbled to pieces for 



* In Dr. Leicly's article on the Mastodon, in the Extinct Mammalia of North America, there are four 

 solid quarto pages, in fine print, of references to authors who have written on the Mastodon Americanus. 



