RECORDS OF MASTODON * REMAINS 



ARRANGED BY COUNTIES 



Albany County 



i 1835? Coeymans. Mastodon or mammoth. This specimen 

 was found previous to 1842, but the exact date is not known. 

 W. W. Mather/ after mentioning the discovery of supposed fossil 

 elephant bones in Green county, states: "Another was found on 

 the Helderberg mountain, in a bed of shell or lake marl, where it 

 appeared to have been mired in this material, on the bank of a small 

 pond-hole or marsh. This was found on the farm of Mr. Shear, 

 4 or 5 miles west of the Hudson, in the township of Coeymans, 

 Albany county. A l tusk of the animal was brought to Albany. 

 Most of the skeleton is supposed to be still at the locality where the 

 tusk was found. The tusk was small for one of these animals." 

 Professor James Hall, 2 who also visited the Coeymans locality, 

 states that " the bones were imbedded in a fresh-water marl, or 

 rested upon the clay beneath the marl. There is here no possibility 

 of their having been transported; and the inference of Doctor 

 DeKay, 3 that these animals perished while in search of food in 

 swamps, seems substantiated by the position of their bones." 



The find above reported is probably the same as that recorded 

 from the town of Coeymans, in French's Gazetteer (i860) which 

 states, " The fossil remains of a mastodon were found on the farm 

 of Mr P. Gidney, 6 miles west of the river." 



Sir Charles Lyell's 4 reference of this occurrence follows: 



"Albany and Greene counties. — Mr Lyell examined, in company 

 with Mr Hall, two swamps west of the Hudson river, where the 



* Mammut (Blumenbach, Naturges, ed. 6, 1799, p. 698), is the earliest name 

 given to the fossil probascidean commonly called the American mastodon. The 

 specific name " americanum " was supplied by Kerr. 



1 Geology of New York, pt I, 1843, p. 44. 



2 Geology of New York, pt 4, 1843, p. 367. 

 'Zoology of New York, pt 1, 1842, p. 104. 



4 In Amer. Jour. Sci. 1844. v. 46, p. 322. From article by Sir Charles 

 Lyell originally printed in Proc. London Geol. Soc. v. 4, no. 92. See also 

 Lyell's Travels in North America, v. 1, 1845, p. 54. Sir Charles Lyell 

 travelled in America in 1841 and with Professor Hall visited several locali- 

 ties where mastodons had been found, including the one in the town of 

 Coeymans. Further references to his visits to mastodon localities will be 

 noted under the counties of Livingston, Monroe and Niagara. 



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