MASTODONS, MAMMOTHS AND OTHER PLEISTOCENE MAMMALS 91 



Alces americanus Jardine Moose 

 Bones of the moose were recovered from a buried pothole of the 

 greater Mohawk channel near West Waterford in December 1909 

 and deposited in the State Museum. The exact locality of this pot- 

 hole, one of twenty-five or thirty encountered during excavation of 

 the barge canal between locks 5 and 6, is recorded on blue-prints at 

 the State Engineer's office, at a point 200 feet east of the end of 

 lock 6 between guide piers 19 and 24. Two to 4 feet of soil and 

 residual clay cover the rock surface at this point. 



The largest of the potholes measured 16 by 20 feet at the surface 

 and was excavated to a depth of 14 feet. At this point the bones 

 were recovered and with them cones of the white spruce ( P i c e a 

 canadensis), Sphagnum moss, pieces of wood and shells be- 

 longing to the genus P 1 a n or b i s. This find was recorded by 

 Clarke, 82 who regarded the potholes as being similar in origin and 

 date to those on the Mohawk at Cohoes in one of which the Cohoes 

 mastodon was found. 



The bones recovered consist of the entire set of cervical and six 

 dorsal vertebrae and portions of six ribs of one side; their occur- 

 rence in the pothole presupposes deposition in the flesh or at least 

 while held together by ligaments; other bones, fragments of ribs 

 about a foot long, were said to have been found in several of the 

 potholes excavated. 



Cervalces scotti? Lydekker 

 Remains that can be positively assigned to this species have not 

 been recorded from New York localities. Emmons, 83 however, de- 

 scribed a tooth from a clay deposit in Chautauqua county, that may 

 belong here. DeKay 84 figured this tooth and gave an account under 

 his discussion of the " fossil stag," Elaphus americanus. 

 The figure and measurements given by DeKay indicate a tooth 

 somewhat larger than the corresponding member of a large bull elk, 

 and differing otherwise in the absence of the column which, in the 

 tooth of the elk, is usually well developed between the two lobes on 

 the inner side. 



References to the literature of Cervalces in O. P. Hay's 

 catalogue 85 include DeKay's Elaphus (in part) and doubtless 

 refer to this tooth. 



N. Y. State Mus. Bui. 140, 1909, p. 46. 

 ' Rep't on the Quadrupeds of Mass. 1840, p. 82-83. 

 'Nat. Hist. N. Y., Zool. pt 1, 1842, p. i20r-2i, pi. 29, fig. 1. 

 ; U f 3- Geol, Surv. Bui. 179, 1902, p. 685. 



