MASTODONS, MAMMOTHS AND OTHER PLEISTOCENE MAMMALS 1 3 



In this connection it may be worthy of remark that Binghamton 

 lies in a valley where during glacial retreat there flowed a great 

 river, whose waters were supplied from the melting ice to the north. 

 It is, of course, possible that the tusk was brought down by this 

 river from the glacial ice, in which case the tusk is probably that 

 of a mammoth. On the other hand, the animal may have lived later 

 and the tusk been buried in the river drift ; if so, the chances favor 

 its belonging to a mastodon. 



Cattaraugus County 



8 1843? Hinsdale. Mastodon or mammoth. At Hinsdale, 

 Hall 13 reports in his list of mastodons, " a tusk, with some horns 

 of deer, was found 16 feet beneath the surface in gravel and sand." 

 Nothing further is known of the character of the remains and it 

 is not known whether the tusk was taken out and preserved. This 

 find is at present interesting chiefly for the association of the deer 

 horns found with it. Hinsdale is at an elevation of 1484 feet. 



9 1906. Conewango Valley. Mastodon or mammoth. In Sep- 

 tember 1906, C. N. and W. H. Hoard reported to the State Geolo- 

 gist the finding of parts of a skeleton represented by 40 to 50 bones, 

 mostly vertebrae and foot bones. The largest bone found was a 

 femur a little over 2 feet in length and 13 inches in circumference 

 midway between the ends ; after seasoning 10 years it weighed a 

 little over 20 pounds. The remains were uncovered by a steam 

 dredge in excavating for the state ditch along the Conewango creek 

 in a shelf of blue clay 10 or 12 feet high. The bones were found 

 imbedded in the blue clay overlaid by about 3 feet of black muck 

 and about 6 feet below the natural surface of the ground. At pres- 

 ent writing these bones are in possession of William T. Fenton, 

 Conewango, N. Y. This locality is close to the boundary of Cat- 

 taraugus and Chautauqua counties. The remains are very probably 

 those of the mastodon but they have, not been identified by anyone 

 capable of close discrimination of their generic characters. (See 

 Clarke, N. Y. State Mus. Annual Rep't Director for 1906, p. 60). 



10 1908. Kill Buck. "A single tusk has been reported as found 

 at this date near the banks of the Great Valley creek. Details are 

 wanting." The above brief account quoted from Clarke (N. Y. 

 State Mus. Bui. 140, p. 46) has not been supplemented by later 

 information, and so the generic character of the tusk still remains 

 in doubt. The elevation of the creek at Kill Buck is 1400 feet. The 



Geology Fourth Dist., 1843, p. 364. 



