32 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



fore procured workmen, who were soon joined by several amateurs 

 of Geneseo, and a pit was dug to the depth of about five feet from 

 the surface. Here we came down upon a bed of white shell-marl 

 and sand, in which lay portions of the skull, ivory tusk, and ver- 

 tebrae, of the extinct quadruped. The shells proved to be all of 

 existing freshwater and land species now common in this district. 

 I had been told that the Mastodon's teeth were taken out of muck, 

 or the black superficial peaty earth of this bog. I was therefore 

 glad to ascertain that it was really buried in the shell-marl below 

 the peat, and therefore agreed in situation with the large fossil elks 

 of Ireland, which, though often said to occur in peat, are in fact 

 met with in subjacent beds of marl." 



Another account by Lyell, 37 published previously to the one above 

 given states that at Geneseo (printed Genesee), "Remains of the 

 Mastodon giganteum were found with existing shells in a small 

 swamp, in a cavity of the boulder formation, so that the animal 

 must have sunk after the period of the drift, when a shallow pond 

 fed by springs was inhabited by the same species of fresh-water 

 Mollusca as now live on the spot." 



A somewhat extended account of the Geneseo mastodon is given 

 in "A History of Livingston county." 38 From this history the fol- 

 lowing statements are derived : " The tusks were of spiral form, 

 one measured 5 feet in length and 7 inches in diameter at its base, 

 gradually diminishing in size to an obtuse point. They were found 

 about 3 feet apart, their points lying in opposite directions. The 

 teeth were marked upon their grinding surface by four rows of 

 studded, blunt points elevated an inch. The processes of the teeth 

 that enter the jaw were destroyed in all of them. The bones were 

 so badly decayed that it was impossible to collect any of the im- 

 portant ones. Measurements showed that the lower bone of the 

 hind leg was 3 feet in length from the knee joint to the ankle. The 

 thigh bone was 3 feet in length from joint to neck. The length of 

 the animal from the center between the base of the two tusks to the 

 exterior point of the pelvis was estimated at 20 feet and the height 

 at 12 feet. The bones were placed in the cabinet of the Buffalo 

 Natural Historical Society." 



This society is now the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences. Its 



87 Am. Jour. Sci., 1844, 46:322. This article is from the Proceedings of 

 the London Geological Society, 1843, v. 4, no. 92. 



38 By Lockwood L. Doty, Geneseo, 1876, p. 379^8i- On page 528 is the 

 statement that the Mammoth spring at Geneseo is so called from the fact 

 that several bones and teeth of a mastodon were exhumed here in 1825. 



