MASTODONS, MAMMOTHS AND OTHER PLEISTOCENE MAMMALS 73 



during the enlargement of the canal at a somewhat later date. It 

 is not known how many of the remains were found for the various 

 parts were carried away by collectors. Some of these are now in 

 the State Museum and were acquired through efforts to bring 

 together in one place as many of the remains as possible. The fol- 

 lowing statement with list shows the parts that were brought 

 together for the museum. 



The Regents are indebted to the following gentlemen for their assistance 

 in procuring the remains of a fossil elephant, exhumed near Chittenango, 

 in excavating the canal: 



_ To James Stewart, Esq., of Amsterdam, for a tusk, tooth, vertebrae, 

 ribs, and bones of the foot. 



To H. C. Merrick, Esq., Civil Engineer of Cortland, for a tusk and ribs 



To Prof. A. K. Eaton, of Clinton, for ribs, etc. 



To Charles Van Eppes, Esq., of Sullivan, for a tooth. 



To James Coleman, of Sullivan, for a tooth and ribs. 



To Mr Robert Wilson, of Chittenango, for a part of the underjaw.* 8 



Unfortunately we do not possess detailed information of the cir« 

 cumstances attending the find or a section showing the character 

 of the material in which the remains were embedded. The portion 

 of the jaw is excellently preserved. So are the parts of the tusks, 

 the missing portions having been cut and sawed away. The jaw 

 is clean and not discolored. It shows little sign of decay and has 

 the appearance of having been found in sand or gravel, although 

 the blue clay, still attached to the rough broken part and in the 

 nerve channels, indicates that the specimen was found either in blue 

 clay or else came in contact with it after excavation. 



The elevation of the Erie canal in the vicinity of Chittenango 

 is about 420 feet, and it lies within the province of glacial Lake 

 Iroquois. Nearly the whole of the region north to Oneida lake is 

 a low flat country, with here and there some drift material appear- 

 ing above the general level of the country, and near the line of the 

 canal there are glacial channels showing the Vernon red shales of 

 the Salina beds. 



The drift material and the Pre-Iroquois channel through which 

 the canal passes near Chittenango have been described by Fair- 

 child, 36 and as the mammoth remains seem likely not to have been 

 found outside of the limits of the drift and channel his description 

 of them is here incorporated: 



In the midst of the embayment at Chittenango is a great mass of 

 morainal drift overlying rock which has a very prominent bank on the 



35 Tenth Annual Rep't, State Cabinet Nat. Hist, for 1855 (1857), p. 18$ 

 190. 



S6 2ist Rep't State Geol. for 1901 (1903), p. r42. See also topographic 

 map, pi. 9, for location of drift area and glacial channel. Also N. Y. State 

 Mus. Bui. 127, 1909, pi. 4. 



