54 OLIVER P. HAY 



In short, there are so many well-preserved extinct vertebrates 

 in No. 3 that it must be referred to the Pleistocene; and the study 

 of the collections adds continually to the number. 



4. A few words only about the human bones. — -I consider now only 

 those found at the locality illustrated by Sellards' Text-Fig. 6 and his 

 Plate 16 and Plate 17, Fig. 2. Had no human bones been found 

 there the following explanation would, I think, hardly be questioned. 

 No. 2, consisting mostly of sand, had been deposited, leaving traces 

 of horizontal stratification. At a later time the swollen streamlet 

 cut down through it to the underlying marl. About four feet 

 away at the same time it cut down nearly to the marl. The two 

 currents left a ridge of undisturbed sand which contained some 

 bones. As the currents lost their force, sand began to be deposited 

 on the sides and summit of the ridge. Had there been any con- 

 siderable interval, this ridge of sand would have been flattened 

 down and disturbed in various ways. Before the freshet spent 

 itself a mass of vegetation was swept down and deposited, mostly 

 in the channels but partly on the ridge, thus sealing it in until our 

 day. As to the human bones found lying on the slope of No. 2, a 

 reasonable explanation is that they had previously been scattered 

 and inclosed in its sands and then laid bare by the freshet. Their 

 condition of fossilization is the same as that of the animal bones 

 found near by, and their broken condition indicates that they had 

 suffered from the trampling of animals, as those other bones had. 



5. The age of stratum No. 2 and of at least the lower part of No. 3 

 is not later than middle Pleistocene. — -The fauna afforded by the 

 deposits in question is essentially that which is found in the Af tonian 

 interglacial beds in Iowa and in the Equus beds of the Plains. From 

 the latter it may be followed into Texas, thence eastward into 

 Florida and South Carolina. Of this fauna two species of ele- 

 phants, the common mastodon, Megalonyx, and the giant beaver, 

 continued on until after the Wisconsin glacial stage. Other species, 

 the saber-tooth tigers, Equus complicatus, the tapirs, most of the 

 extinct bisons, and Mylodon probably disappeared before the Wis- 

 consin. In the earlier Pleistocene deposits only are found Elephas 

 imperator, camels, several species of horses, and many edentates. 

 At Vero have been found three species of horses, at least four 



