MASTODONS, MAMMOTHS AND OTHER PLEISTOCENE MAMMALS 3/ 



and apparently no mammoths from New York were known 

 to him at the time of the publication of his report in 

 1843. Among the list of Fossil Bones of Quadrupeds he cites 

 one (page 364) : " in the town of Perrinton, in the bank of a 

 small stream, in gravel and sand, a tusk and several teeth were 

 found at this place, which are now in the Rochester Museum." 



The evidence as to the age of the deposits in which the remains 

 were found is not such as to justify any definite conclusion. 

 Whether the animal became imbedded in these deposits while Iro- 

 quois waters were still present or at a much later period can not be 

 determined from present known facts. Hall states that " the de- 

 posit of gravel and sand is a recent one, made by the stream on 

 which it occurs" (page 366). It is possible that the remains may 

 have been washed out of an earlier deposit by later waters and some 

 of the parts reinterred. The scattering of the remains suggests that 

 such might have been the case. The bulk of deposits are of glacial 

 delta formation and the locality is not only within the southern 

 area of glacial Lake Iroquois but also in the area of the preceding 

 water, glacial Lake Dawson. 



39 I &37- Genesee Valley Canal. Mastodon or mammoth. A 

 letter apparently written by Prof. Chester Dewey and dated Roch- 

 ester August 19, 1837 states 46 : 



A part of a mammoth has this day (Aug. 19th) been uncovered in exca- 

 vating the Genesee Valley Canal, where it crosses Sophia 47 street, in this 

 city. Two ribs, a part of the skull, and of a bone of a leg, and an enor- 

 mous tusk, have been found. The last, which must have been 8 or 10 feet 

 long, was chiefly picked to pieces by the Irish laborers, who supposed it 

 to be a log, as it had lost its gelatine; about a foot of the smaller end is 

 entire, and there can be no doubt what it once was. It must have been 8 

 inches in diameter in the middle. One rib, which seems to have been a 

 short rib, is in a fine state of preservation. Whether the animal was an 

 elephant or a mastodon is uncertain. These remains were found about 

 4 feet below the surface in a hollow or water-course, lying on and in a 

 very hard body of blue clay, and about 2 feet above the polished limestone, 

 which underlies so great a portion of this city. 



The upper surface of the limestone, which is covered with soil and 

 earth from 2 to 6 and sometimes to 12 and 20 feet deep under Rochester, 

 is not merely smoothed, but actually polished, making a very good transition 

 marble. 



This find is also recorded by Hall in Assembly Document 

 200, February 20, 1838, page 347, and more fully, described 

 by him in the Natural History of New York (Geol. pt 4, 1843, 

 p. 364). Hall states, "In 1838 [should be 1837], • • • some bones 



*Amer. Jour. Sci., 1838, 33:201. 



47 This is now Plymouth avenue and the locality is near its intersection 

 with Caledonia avenue. 



