336 DISCOVERY OF MASTODON TUSK. 



electrometer and burning match may be used instead by travelers, or when 

 neither very delicate observations nor automatic records can be taken. — 

 Abstract from Proceeding of the Asiatic Society of Ja2')an — London Telegraphic 

 Journal. 



PALEONTOLOGY. 



REPORT OF DISCOVERY OF MASTODON TUSK. 

 BY II. H. WEST. 



Absorbed alone in the present, amid the busy scenes of life, we little 

 dream of the silent past until accident has revealed, hidden perhaps at our 

 very feet, some strange monument, some mysterious vestige of a long by- 

 gone age^ to recall its reality. An accident of this kind has thrown in our 

 way a relic of the largest of the extinct terrestrial mammals, and recalls to 

 our minds the wonderful life of the Post-glacial time. 



Last June I found on Campbell street, about one hundred and fifty 

 feet north of Independence avenue, a fragment of the tusk of the mastodon 

 It was at the bottom of one of those deep channels, caused by the natural 

 drainage, so characteristic of the loess, imbedded in the upper part of the 

 drift. The piece secured is only two and one-half feet in length, w^th a di- 

 ameter of four and one-half inches at the larger end, and two inches at the 

 smaller, but the tusk was traced for a distance of five and one-half feet, and 

 was probably considerably longer, as the base and apex are both wanting. 

 It was so badly decomposed that it was saved with difiiculty. Small frag- 

 ments were' found scattered through the clay and gravel for several inches 

 .around it, evidentlj^ broken and scaled off at the time it was deposited. 

 The following section will better show its geological position : 



Buff loess loam 10 to 15 feet. 



Gravelly bed — gravel consisting of chert and argillaceous 



shale 6 inches. 



Sandy loam, sparingly interspersed with fragments of 



/ chert and shale 5 feet. 



Gravelly bed, with limestone fragments, containing ^ro- 

 ductus longispinus, terebratula bovidens and a small trilo- 

 bite. This gravel is probably all derived from the 



rocks in the immediate vicinity, , 6 inches. 



Sandy loam, penetrated by many vermicular tubes and 

 and small pockets filled with black and greenish mate- 

 rial. The lower 8 inches contains drift pebbles 2 ft. 6 in. 



Sandy clay, with pebbles and boulders of granite, green- 

 stone, quartzite, kidney-ore (sr)athic iron), quartz, etc 1 foot. 



