HABITAT AND GEOLOGICAL POSITION. 



231 



sippi, in the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, 

 have been recorded, "but not in sufficient detail to determine 

 the species. Dr. Warren mentions that he possessed thirty 

 molars of the fossil Elephant of Alabama, but he gives no 

 details regarding the conditions under which they were 

 found. 1 All the circumstances connected with the remains 

 occurring in Georgia have been carefully investigated by able 

 observers. Between the Apalachian Mountains and the At- 

 lantic there is a wide stretch of horizontal tertiary strata, 

 forming three terraces, each about twenty miles wide. 2 The 

 lowermost, or littoral, platform rises from ten to forty feet 

 above the level of the sea, and stretches at least 400 miles 

 northward to IsTewbern on the Neuse in Carolina. The de- 

 posit is fluvio-marine, resting upon Eocene strata ; although 

 mainly marine, it contains beds of freshwater origin, in 

 which the Mammalian remains occur. Lyell considers it to 

 be very analogous to the great Pampean formation of South 

 America, as described by Darwin, and to be of Pleistocene age. 

 The bones were found between four and sis feet below the 

 surface, embedded in clay and resting on yellow sand, and be- 

 longed to Megatherium, Mastodon, Elephant, &c. The ascer- 

 tained range of E. Golumbi, from Mexico to Georgia, includes 

 18° of Long, and 12° of Lat. between the parallels of 20° and 

 32°. But there are grounds for suspecting that it ranged 

 into South America. M. Lartet has recorded the fragment 

 of an Elephant's molar, characterized by thick ridge-plates, 

 brought from Cayenne in French Guiana by Captain Perret, 

 and presented by him to the Museum of Marseilles. 3 What 

 makes this not improbable is the fact, that Dr. le Conte while 

 in Honduras examined the Mastodon bed near the village of 

 Tambla, in one of the passes leading from the plain of 

 Comayagua to the Pacific, and satisfied himself that the spe- 

 cies found there was identical with M. giganteus (Ohioticus) 

 of North America. 4 It is therefore not unlikely, that the 

 fossil Elephant of Georgia may have ranged still further 

 south than Mexico, into Guiana. 



§ 4. Associated Fossil Mammalia. 



Of the Mexican Mammal contemporaries of E. Cokimbi but 

 very little bas as yet been ascertained. Yon Meyer, in his 

 notice of Herr Uhde's collection, mentions a Mastodon 

 resembling M. angustidens of Kcepfnach in Switzerland ; a 



1 On Mastodon giganteus, p. 62. 



2 Hamilton Couper. Geol. Proceeds. 

 1813, vol. iv. p. 33 ; and Lyell's Second 

 Visit to North America, 3rd edit. 1855. 

 Vol. i. p. 347. 



8 Bullet. Soe. Geol. de Prance, 2d ser. 

 torn. xvi. p. 500. 



4 Proceed. Acad. Nat. Scien. of Philad. 

 1858, p. 7. 



