378 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIX. No. 1268 



governor of ITew York, had urged that the 

 mammoth should appear on its coat of arms, 

 it was evident that, although a mighty hunter 

 of existing game, he was a bit weak as regards 

 extinct types. Sad to say, it was the members 

 of the society that were a bit weak on this 

 particular type. The following examples ap- 

 pear to vindicate the knowledge of the mighty 

 hunter. 



In 1842 J. E. De Eay^ . described a molar 

 tooth of Elephas ■primigenius under the name 

 Elephas americanus. It has been found at 

 Pittsford, in Monroe County. In Eochester 

 University there is a molar of the same species 

 which is said to have been found at William- 

 son, Wayne County. Since the meeting re- 

 ferred to. Dr. Burnett Smith, of Syracuse 

 University, has reported to the present writer 

 a tusk and a tooth from Minoa, Onondaga 

 County. 



Of the great elephant known as Elephas 

 columbi, a tooth was described from Homer, 

 Cortland County, in 1847.^ In the American 

 Museum of Natural History, New York, there 

 is a part of a molar which was found near 

 Elmira, Chemimg County, and which appears 

 to belong to this species. 



In 1843 Mather^ stated that bones of both 

 the mastodon and of the elephant had been 

 foimd in Orange County. The identification 

 of the elephant is doubtful. In 1858 Emmons'* 

 reported that an elephant tooth had been 

 taken from the shore of Seneca lake. To 

 which species this belonged is not known. 



It would be interesting to learn when the 

 mastodon (Mammut americanum) became ex- 

 tinct. It is certain that the species was widely 

 spread over at least the northern states after 

 the disappearance of the last glacial sheet. 

 In New York they are found in great numbers 

 in the southeast corner and at the western 

 end of the state, in marls and mucks over- 

 lying the Wisconsin drift. Along lakes Erie 



2"Zool. N. T. Mamm.," p. 101, pi. XXXII., 

 fig. 2. 



3 Amer. Jour. Agricult. and Sci., Vol. VI., p. 31, 



fig- 



4 Geol. iih Distr., pp. 233, 636. 



6 Geol. Surv. N. C, East Counties, p. 200. 



and Ontario they are found on the lakeward 

 side of the Iroquois beach, an indication that 

 the species survived there imtil the waters had 

 shrunken quite into their present limits. 



Professor H. L. Fairchild" has recently 

 shown that, while the foot of the Wisconsin 

 glacier was occupying the northern side of 

 Long Island, the sea occupied the remainder 

 of the island: and that during this occupation 

 a thick deposit of stratified drift was laid 

 down. After the ice had retired from the 

 island, probably well toward the north of the 

 state, the region south of the ice sheet began 

 to rise, and Long Island at length became 

 dry land or swamp. In depressions on the 

 surface of these sea-laid deposits, there after- 

 wards accumulated silts and muck; and in 

 these pond deposits at three or four places on 

 the island, there have been found remains of 

 mastodons. In one case at least, at Eiver- 

 head, the land had probably risen to nearly 

 its present level, for the mastodon was found 

 between present low and high water. This 

 must have been well along towards the end of 

 the pleistocene. 



An interesting case is that of a mastodon 

 found in 1866 at Cohoes, near the mouth of 

 the Mohawk. This skeleton, nearly complete, 

 was mounted by G. H. Gilbert and is yet in 

 the State Museum at Albany. It formed the 

 subject of an essay by James HalF and also 

 the first writing of Gilbert. At Cohoes there 

 are foiuid some himdreds of potholes, some 

 in the bed of the present river, many of them 

 in process of forming, others on the banks a 

 hundred feet or more above the present river 

 and long ago filled up. One of the latter, of 

 irregular form, because of the coalescence of 

 two or more originally distinct holes, proved 

 to have a depth of more than 60 feet, and 

 diameters of 33 and 73 feet. Out of this ex- 

 cavation had been taken thousands of loads 

 of muck, with trunks and branches of decayed 

 trees. At a depth of about 50 feet from the 



e Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., Vol. XXVIII., pp. 297- 

 308. 



' Twenty-first Ann. Eep. N. Y. State Cab., 1871, 

 pp. 99-148, with plates. 



