MASTODONS, MAMMOTHS AND OTHER PLEISTOCENE MAMMALS 29 



Sage of Copenhagen, Lewis Co., has just brought to me a tusk of 

 a Mammoth or Elephant 32 found about a mile west of that village on 

 Thursday of last week (Sept. 20th). It is 5 feet 9 inches long on 

 the lower side, 8^4 inches around at the base and 10% at the largest 

 part, and weighs 25 pounds. It was found in digging muck from 

 a low place in a field that had no drainage but was on somewhat 

 elevated ground. Its base was uppermost in the muck and it passed 

 obliquely down through a kind of marl into a bed of blue gravel. 

 The tip was broken off in getting out but has been mended on again. 

 The tusk is quite sound and has a socket at the base. . . . The 

 tusk is much more slender than any I have seen, and must have 

 belonged to a young animal." In a letter to Professor Hall, dated 

 October 11, 1877, Doctor Hough tells of a personal visit to the 

 locality. He wrote, " The place where the tusk was found being 

 12 miles from this place, I did not find an opportunity of seeing it 

 until today. The spot is a narrow swamp timbered with black 

 ash, soft maple and elm, and was evidently once a shallow pond. 

 The limestone rock is not over 10 or 12 feet below the surface, and 

 is covered with a foot or more of gravel. Over this is 'a stratum 

 of marl, still showing occasionally delicate but distinct shells of 

 existing species but mostly a finely comminuted greyish white mass 

 of the consistence of putty. Above this and varying in depth from 

 1 to 6 feet or more, is muck, full of the remains of the recent vege- 

 tation of the swamp. The place where the tusk was found, was 

 near the bottom of the muck, and in the marl, about 5 feet below 

 the surface. No excavatioins have since been made and the hole 

 is now in the condition of a mortar bed from recent rains. 



" I think there is no doubt but that the animal lost its life there 

 as both the marl and muck have been formed where they are. 

 There is no appearance of any materials having been transported 

 by currents or otherwise." 



This swamp is on the divide between the North Sandy creek and 

 the Deer river at an elevation of 1190 feet above sea. A slight 

 difference in level would turn the waters into the Deer river, but 

 the natural overflow is into the extreme source of the North Sandy 

 creek. This find is the most northerly thus far recorded in the 

 State. The tusk as shown in the plate is a slender one and it has 

 not been determined definitely whether it belonged to a mastodon 

 or mammoth. While the tusk resembles in some respects that of 



N A brief account of this find is given by C. H. Merriam in " The 

 Mammals of the Adirondack Region," 1886, p. 145. The same account is 

 also given in Tran. Linnaean Soc. of N. Y., 1884, 2:47. 



