MASTODONS, MAMMOTHS AND OTHER PLEISTOCENE MAMMALS 6? 



adjective or a noun. As an adjective it denotes large or huge size 

 and was so used in America even before the word became used as 

 an adjective in England. It is recorded that an English writer 

 wondered why the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky was so called since 

 no remains of the mammoth had been found there. Although the 

 fossil elephant has been recorded from southeastern New York, it 

 is believed that this record was due to the use of an indefinite term 

 and that the animal was really a mastodon. In western New York 

 about ten specimens which lack generic determination are recorded 

 with the mastodons. In the latter section only two of the fourteen 

 mammoth remains can be credited, and these doubtfully as having 

 been found in swamp deposits. On the other hand, nearly all the 

 mastodon remains have been found in swamps. The chances then 

 greatly favor the inference that the generically undetermined 

 proboscidian remains from swamps are of the mastodon rather than 

 of the mammoth. Of the doubtful specimens included under the 

 mastodons, the tusk from Pony Hollow (no. 92 Tompkins county) 

 could, it is believed, have been placed with equal propriety with the 

 mammoths. This was not done because only such remains as have 

 been positively identified as mammoths are included in the list. 

 Another doubtful specimen described with the mastodons is the 

 Copenhagen tusk from Lewis county. If this slender tusk could be 

 proved to belong to a mammoth, it would go far to indicate the 

 presence of the mammoth in New York in Postglacial times. Such 

 evidence, although eagerly sought for, has not been forthcoming. 

 Further studies and discoveries may prove definitely the presence 

 of the mammoth in New York since the glacial period. Such dis- 

 coveries of a late mammoth may be expected since they have been 

 found in some of the nearby states. 



There is no doubt that mammoth remains were imbedded in sand 

 and gravels laid down during recession of the ice sheet. Examples 

 of these are best seen in the Lewiston specimens of teeth and bones 

 which were found deeply buried in the spit formed in Lake Iroquois. 

 The Savannah specimen is another good example, where the gravel 

 beds in which the teeth and bones were found was formed during 

 the period when Lake Iroquois was at a high level. The Clyde 

 mammoth tooth was deeply buried at a still earlier time in a delta 

 of Lake Montezuma — a lake earlier than Iroquois and in point of 

 time corresponding more nearly to glacial Lake Warren. These 

 three occurrences as described in the pages following are com- 

 paratively recent finds, and the data relating to them have been care- 

 fully investigated by the writers and are thoroughly reliable. 



Deeply buried specimens of bones and teeth of the mammoth 

 5 



